A review is given of the experimental and theoretical studies on the formation of nano- and submicron aerosols. It is shown that the results of a classical theory of the kinetics of the origin and growth of aerosol particles disagree substantially with experimental data. Considerable quantitative (up to four orders of magnitude) and qualitative discrepancies are caused by the fact that a theoretical model neglects the influence of the generated coagulation of aerosol particles on size range formation. The authors suggest a theoretical model involving solution of the system of Smolukhowski coagulation equations for describing the formation of the size range of nano- and submicron aerosol particles. A comparison with the results of investigations performed under field and laboratory conditions indicates fair agreement between calculated and experiments data.
modeling, nanoparticles, coagulation, kinetics, photolysis