The hygroscopic growth of particles produced from 12 consumer spray pr
oducts was studied to provide the quantitative basis for modeling thei
r respiratory deposition. A tandem differential mobility analyzer (TDM
A) was used for the measurement of growth of aerosol particles produce
d by spray from three disinfectants, four deodorants, four air freshen
ers, and a cooking medium. The soluble fractions of the aerosol partic
les were measured for each product and from the growth theory, the mol
ecular weights of the products were estimated. The size distributions
of the spray product aerosols were also measured using a low-pressure
impactor. It was observed that some of the spray product aerosol do no
t grow at all, while others showed moderate to high growth. The growth
ratio ranged from 1 to nearly ? depending on the nature of the produc
t and the initial size of the aerosol. The soluble fractions and molec
ular weights were in the range 0.01-0.96 and 15-700, respectively. The
mass median aerodynamic diameters of the aerosols varied from 2.3 to
8.8 mu m and geometric standard deviations from 2.0 to 3.8.