ACTRIS Marketplace

CESAM chamber is a unique research infrastructure to investigate multiphase atmospheric processes including SOA formation, aerosol aging, cloud chemistry, etc. It is a 4.2 m3 stainless steel reactor, evacuable and temperature controlled (0°C to 60°C). It is equipped with a highly realistic irradiation system and with a comprehensive set of analytical instruments, including PTR-MS, AMS, CIMS, in situ long path UV-vis and FTIR, etc. Features that make this platform particularly suited to investigate multiphase processes are:

• very long submicronic aerosol lifetime

• ability to produce clouds

• protocol for mineral dust seeding

• high cleanliness level

• quality of the instrumentation

The CSA chamber is one of the two chambers of the CESAM platform. It is dedicated to the gas-phase atmospheric chemistry and spectroscopy studies. It is a 1m3 pyrex reactor evacuable and is operated at room temperature. It is equipped with a highly realistic artificial irradiation system and with analytical techniques including in situ long path UV-Visible and FTIR, in situ IBB-CEAS (for NO3 measurement) and PTR-Tof-MS. The CSA chamber is particularly suited for intercalibration of IR/UV spectra and study of kinetics and mechanisms of gas phase reactions.

CESAM platform provides the possibility of testing new instrumentation and to perform (inter)calibrations or intercomparisons. 

Existing standard operation procedures can be used for

comparison of new with established analytical techniques/instruments with the

user. 

CESAM chamber is a powerful infrastructure to investigate aerosol optical properties. It is equipped with in situ long path spectrometers to measure the aerosol extinction from UV-vis to mid-IR spectral ranges, and with various on-line techniques including nephelometer, aethalometer (7 wavelengths), CRDS. Different injection systems allow the introduction/generation of organic aerosol, soot, dust and salt. 

CESAM chamber can be combined with the POLLURISK platform to expose living organisms to atmospheric pollutants (controlled mixtures). The key features of CESAM-POLLURISK are:

• Exposure of preclinical models to urban atmospheric pollution 

• Biological facility to conduct analysis on preclinical models (as an illustration lung function, systemic response, biological analyses, blood/urine/organs sampling, …

• Exposure of preclinical models to more complex exposome as noise and stress

• Measurement of associated Oxidative Potential of the simulated exposome

  • Exposure of cells/organoids in parallel to in vivo studies (starting 2025): in a nutshell, in vivo studies are dedicated to establish the links between Exposome components and Health Effects, when in vitro studies will contribute to identify the nature of these links.

Short and long-term experimental Cal/Val campaigns at OPAR premises, using OPAR’s infrastructure and user’s own instrumentation. Examples of experimental campaigns that have already taken place concern ADM-Aeolus (wind) and Earth Care (aerosols). The infrastructure at OPAR combines ACTRIS compliant aerosol remote sensing, trace gases remote sensing, cloud remote sensing and aerosol in-situ instrumentation (ACTRIS & ICOS), along with complementary measurements for meteorological parameters and radiation (check OPAR equipment list). Additional instruments from the users can be accommodated indoor or outdoor, as needed. Overflights with probe balloons, drones and small research aircrafts possible.

In addition to Service 1 (see previous table), the service includes:

• Support from the technical staff to install and operate the instruments

• Support from the scientific staff to set the measurements schedule coincident with satellite overpasses

• Support from the scientific staff to collect, process and analyze the data.

AVAILABILITY PERIOD: All year round except July 14th to August 15th, and December 19th to January 19th

Measurement guidelines for NFs for instruments dealing with online aerosol chemical speciation (for observational and exploratory platforms)