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      • Degree Programmes
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      • About FHNW
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      Prof. Dr. Ernest Weingartner

      Ernest Weingartner

      Activities at FHNW

      • Group Leader of the Aerosol Technology Group and Deputy Head at the FHNW Institute for Sensors and Electronics
      • Lecturer in Sensor Technology, Supervisor of Bachelor and Master Students

      Research

      • Particle measurement
      • Carbonaceous aerosols (soot)
      • Aerosol generation and filtration
      • Spectroscopy
      • Photothermal methods

      Teaching

      • Measurement and Sensor Technology, Measurement and Sensor Technology 1 and Measurement and Sensor Technology 2
      • Laboratory Energy and Drive Systems 1 and Laboratory Energy and Drive Systems 2 

      Projects

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      Profile

      Biography

      ORCID and LinkedIn

      Work Experience

      Since 2018     
      Deputy Head of the FHNW Institute for Sensors and Electronics
      FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, School of Engineering and Environment, Windisch

      Since 2018,
      Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Systems Sciences at ETH Zurich

      Since 2018     
      Group Leader of the Aerosol Technology Group in the newly founded FHNW Institute for Sensors and Electronics

      Since 2018 
      Full Professor at FHNW

      Since 2014             
      Researcher at the FHNW Institute for Aerosol and Sensor Technology and Lecturer at FHNW

      2001 - 2014           
      Group Leader of the Aerosol Physics Group in the Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry at PSI, Switzerland

      1996 - 2001
      Staff Scientist in the Laboratory of Radio- and Environmental Chemistry at PSI, Switzerland

      Education

      1996 
      Ph.D. thesis: “Modification of combustion aerosols in the  atmosphere”, No. 11733, ETH Zurich

      1992 - 1996
      Graduate studies in the "Laboratory for Combustion Aerosols and Suspended Particles" at ETH Zurich

      1992
      Diploma in Experimental Physics, ETH Zurich

      1985 - 1991
      Undergraduate studies in physics at the ETH Zurich

      Competencies

      Personal skills
      I have in-depth experience with the design of experiments to characterize physical and chemical properties of particulate matter. Already during my experimental PhD work at ETHZ, I studied the aging processes of real soot particles in the atmosphere. Then, during 13 years of cutting-edge research at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), I characterized the properties and impacts of natural and anthropogenic aerosols contributing to the provision of better data for future climate and air quality models. In field measurement campaigns near and far from various aerosol sources, I investigated the physical and chemical properties of particles to understand their sources and impacts. An important task was to identify and quantify the different sources of carbonaceous aerosols (e.g., soot emissions from traffic vs. domestic wood burning). These data are very important as they could be used to mitigate exposure to high concentrations of harmful particles and so improve the health of the populace.
      I was also responsible for establishing and operating the continuous aerosol measurements at the high alpine research station Jungfraujoch. This work was conducted within the Swiss Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) aerosol programme under the auspices of WMO. One research focus was, for example, the characterization of aerosol optical properties and the interaction of aerosol particles with mixed-phase clouds. The results are important for the improvement of climate models, as they allow a better representation of the complex interactions of (anthropogenic) aerosol particles with radiation and their interactions in clouds.

      With my research, I have contributed to reducing the uncertainties in the measurement of carbonaceous particles. In 2003, I quantitatively characterized the complex processes and resulting artifacts of a multiwavelength absorption photometer (aethalometer). This paper has been cited more than 1100 times and paved the way for a better determination of aerosol absorption coefficients using filter-based methods and is used today for the source apportionment of atmospheric black carbon particles. Nevertheless, the measurement uncertainties of this filter-based method remain large. I therefore started in 2014 to evaluate better alternatives and the in-situ method based on photothermal interferometry (PTI) and photoacoustics (PA) attracted my attention. Since then, my group is refining these techniques which can measure aerosol black carbon very precisely. My team has developed a new measuring technique based on a single beam PTI. This method is currently being refined and miniaturized using waveguides and photonic integrated circuits (pic).

      I am dedicated to developing innovative instrumentation to answer relevant research questions. A few examples (besides the above-mentioned photothermal techniques):

      • A new prototype aerosol sensor for the reliable detection of volcanic ash has recently been developed. The envisaged application is the employment of this new technique on board of passenger aircraft. The sensor allows in-situ monitoring of the airplane’s exposure to volcanic ash.
      • A Ice Selective Inlet (ISI), which allows for the extraction of small ice particles in mixed-phase clouds for the physicochemical characterization of ice nuclei.
      • The white-light humidified optical particle spectrometer (WHOPS) is a newly developed instrument that allows the measurement of the hygroscopic properties of supermicrometer-sized aerosols. The high temporal resolution enabled the instrument to be used on board a research zeppelin as part of an EU project to study the aging processes of pollutants.
      • The first instrument (low-temperature H-TDMA) to measure the dependence of aerosol particle size on relative humidity in-situ at temperatures below 0°C. This pioneering work has triggered the development of many other H-TDMA instruments that are currently deployed worldwide in laboratories and in the field to quantify the water uptake of aerosol particles.

      A new instrument (DustEar) for the acoustic detection of aerosols that directly measures the mass of individual particles. This development is in demand in metrology, for example, as it enables the traceability of the mass of aerosol particles.

      Publications

      Author/Coauthor of more than 187 peer-reviewed scientific papers, h-index: 89 (as of March 2023)

      Full publication lists

      • Web of Science
      • Google Scholar
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    • School

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      Prof. Dr. Ernest Weingartner

      Prof. Dr. Ernest Weingartner

      Lecturer in Sensor and Aerosol Technology

      Telephone

      +41 56 202 79 18 (undefined)

      E-mail

      ernest.weingartner@fhnw.ch

      Address

      Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW Hochschule für Technik und Umwelt Klosterzelgstrasse 2 5210 Windisch

      Room

      1.231

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