Spark ablation is a highly effective and versatile method for producing nanoparticles from bulk conductive electrode materials. For a number of applications, however, the production throughput of the process needs to be increased with respect to the current state of the art. Here we show that this can be achieved by decreasing the diameter of the employed bulk-material electrodes from ca. 12 to 0.15 mm, corroborating previous observations, and demonstrate that the throughput is associated with the ablation efficiency (i.e., the energy spent to produce nanoparticles per total input energy) that respectively increases by a factor of 10. It is also shown that the commonly used theory for predicting the mass of nanoparticles produced by spark ablation cannot capture this effect, and thus we extend it to account for heat losses that affect the process when electrode diameter reduces below ca. 2 mm. Through this exercise we also show that reduced heat losses associated with thinner electrodes provide an effective recipe to increase the ablation efficiency, also referred as the nanoparticle production yield. The new extended theory for estimating spark ablation nanoparticle mass production throughput is also accompanied by an empirical equation predicting its dependence on electrode diameter.

The Differential Mobility Analyzer (DMA) is currently the most effective instrument for sizing sub-micrometer aerosol particles. An important requirement to ensure good performance in terms of sizing accuracy and resolution is that the flow field remains laminar and undisturbed along its classification zone. To achieve that, a flow straightener (or flow laminarizer) is employed at the sheath flow inlet, located at the top of the classification column. In this study, we assess the performance of a custom-made DMA using different sheath flow straighteners made out of plastic fabric materials or built by 3D printing. Our tests show that 3D-printed flow straighteners can achieve comparable, and in some cases better, results to those used in commercial DMAs (e.g., fine nylon meshes; Dacron®). Considering the great flexibility and ease in manufacturing offered by 3D printing, our findings show that this technology provides a promising alternative for building enhanced flow straightening systems.