Beimdiek, J.; Schmid, H.-J. Evaluation of Surrogate Aerosol Experiments to Predict Spreading and Removal of Virus-Laden Aerosols. Atmosphere2024, 15, 305.
Beimdiek, J.; Schmid, H.-J. Evaluation of Surrogate Aerosol Experiments to Predict Spreading and Removal of Virus-Laden Aerosols. Atmosphere 2024, 15, 305.
Beimdiek, J.; Schmid, H.-J. Evaluation of Surrogate Aerosol Experiments to Predict Spreading and Removal of Virus-Laden Aerosols. Atmosphere2024, 15, 305.
Beimdiek, J.; Schmid, H.-J. Evaluation of Surrogate Aerosol Experiments to Predict Spreading and Removal of Virus-Laden Aerosols. Atmosphere 2024, 15, 305.
Abstract
Estimating the infection risks in indoor environments comprises the assessment of the behavior of virus-laden aerosols, i.e. spreading, mixing, removal by air purifiers etc. A promising experimental approach is based on using non-hazardous surrogate aerosols of similar size, e.g. salt particles, to mimic the virus aerosol behavior. This manuscript addresses the issue how a successful transfer of such experiments can be accomplished. Corresponding experiments in two very different environments, a large community hall and a seminar room, with optional use of air purifiers in various constellations were conducted. While high particle concentrations are advantageous in terms of avoiding influence of background aerosol concentrations, it is shown that appropriate consideration of aggregation and settling are vital to theoretically describe the experimentally determined course of particle concentrations. A corresponding model equation for a well-mixed situation is derived and the required parameters are thoroughly determined in separate experiments independently. It is demonstrated that clean air delivery rates (CADR) of air purifiers determined with this approach may differ substantially from common approaches not explicitly taking into account aggregation.
Keywords
surrogate aerosols; indoor air cleaners; ultra-fine particles; COVID-19; test method; field experiments: clean air delivery rate
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
