Units - CAIS-ECAC

Welcome to CAIS-ECAC - Center for Aerosol In-Situ - European Center for Aerosol Calibration and Characterization
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World Calibration Centre for Aerosol Physics (WCCAP)

The WCCAP was founded in 2002 to serve as a competence center for in-situ physical and optical aerosol measurements as part of the world-wide GAW-program of the WMO. This WCCAP is world-wide unique for the quality assurance of physical and optical in-situ aerosol measurements and station audits to improve infrastructures.


Prague Aerosol Calibration Centre (PACC)

The PACC was founded in 2020 as part of ACTRIS Topical Centre for Aerosol In-Situ observations (CAIS/ECAC). It serves for calibration and quality assurance of physical in-situ aerosol measurements and station audits for ACTRIS and for external users. (operational 2021)


European Reference Laboratory for Air Pollution (ERLAP)

ERLAP was founded in 1994 to serve as a calibration facility for measurements of particulate matter and gaseous air pollutants in Europe. Inter-laboratory comparisons have been organized yearly or more for 2 decades. As a service of the European Commission, ERLAP provides support independently of national and private interests, which makes it unique in Europe.


Aerosol Chemical Monitor Calibration Center (ACMCC)

The ACMCC is managed by a consortium of French laboratories, including CNRS (LSCE and LaMP) and INERIS, and is mainly based at LSCE, located south of the Paris region. As part of the quality control procedures, the ACMCC provides a large set of independent co-located on-line/off-line aerosol measurements for chemical, physical and optical parameters. It offers innovation opportunities through the exchange of information between manufacturers and users,  the optimization of technological solutions, and the evaluation of new online aerosol chemical analyzers.


Cluster Calibration Center (CCC)

CCC is hosted by Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR), University of Helsinki, Finland. The CCC facilities are located in Helsinki, Kumpula campus. INAR has over 30 years of experience of developing aerosol instrumentation, especially for sub 10 nm aerosol particle detection.

CCC is leading, managing and coordinating activities on sub-10 nm particle measurements (particle number concentration and size distribution). CCC provides operation support to ACTRIS National Facilities and services to other users in sub-10 nm particle measurements. The instruments we support/service include ion spectrometer, NAIS; particle size magnifier, PSM (nano-condensation Nucleus counter, nCNC consisting of a PSM and a CPC) and nano-mobility particle size spectrometers, nano-MPSS (optimized for 10 nm size distribution measurements).

CCC provides training and consultancy on sub-10 nm measurements (e.g., training as part of our intercomparison workshops, lectures), measurement and data procedures and tools (e.g., SOPs for nanoparticle measurement instruments and QA/QC tools for sub-10 nm measurement data) and measurement monitoring (e.g., instrument intercomparison workshops for nanoparticle instruments, data quality evaluation). CCC has also an active role in nanoparticle measurement method and instrument development.

CCC is currently being set-up and will be fully operational by 2026.



Organic Tracers and Aerosol Constituents Calibration Center (OGTAC-CC)

The Atmospheric Chemistry Department of TROPOS hosts the Organic Tracers and Aerosol Constituents - Calibration Centre (OGTAC-CC), which is the first calibration center for these class of compounds worldwide, providing a strong benefit to the aerosol community, as it harmonizes approaches for the chemical analysis of organic particulate constituents.


Elemental Mass Calibration Centre (EMC2)

The EMC2 unit will be hosted in the INFN LABEC laboratory which is devoted to the analysis of the elemental composition of aerosols, environmental samples and cultural heritage by means of analytical nuclear techniques, such as ion beam analysis, besides other field of applications, for instance material science and forensics, and radiocarbon dating with accelerator mass spectrometry. The LABEC laboratory was born in 2003 with the installation of a 3 MV Tandetron particle accelerator and stems from more than thirty years of experience of the research group members with accelerator-related analytical techniques.

workshop schedule

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