New CARE-C study develops a new cost-effective Optical Particle Sizer 

New study of CARE-C, The Cyprus Institute, developed a new custom-made, cost-effective instrument for measuring the concentration and size of particles in the ambient air, namely an Optical Particle Sizer (OPS), and tested its performance under different operating conditions. This new OPS allows large-scale counting of aerosol particles, helping researchers assess their effects on human health and climate.

OPSs are widely used instruments for measuring the quantity and size of gas-suspended particles in the atmosphere. They can also be used as part of integrated systems for measuring more than the quantity and size of aerosol particles, such as shape, optical properties, and cloud-forming ability.

A number of commercial OPSs are currently available in the market. The cost of these instruments, however, very from ten thousand euros to fifteen thousand euros, which prohibits using many of them in dense air quality monitoring networks.

As Dr Charis Loizides, Research Technical Assistant at the Instrumentation and Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) of CARE-C, who led the development of the OPS, highlighted, the system’s lower cost paves the way for more affordable aerosol particle counting and sizing, which is essential for better understanding their impacts on human health and the climate.

The tests conducted to assess the custom-made OPS show that its performance meets the requirements of ISO 21501-1 and 21501-4 standards, providing measurements that are comparable with high-end instruments. Considering the lower cost of this system, this work paves the way towards inexpensive counting and sizing of aerosol particles, which is very much needed for a better understanding of their impacts on human health and climate.

Reference:
Loizidis, C., Skourides, C., Bezantakos, S. et al. On the importance of the flow field in inexpensive optical aerosol particle counting and sizing. Sci Rep 15, 35259 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-11785-2