A wind tunnel test of newly developed personal bioaerosol samplers

Abstract

In this study the performance of two newly developed personal bioaerosol samplers was evaluated. The two test samplers are cyclone-based personal samplers that incorporate a recirculating liquid film. The performance evaluations focused on the physical efficiencies that a personal bioaerosol sampler could provide, including aspiration, collection, and capture efficiencies. The evaluation tests were carried out in a wind tunnel, and the test personal samplers were mounted on the chest of a full-size manikin placed in the test chamber of the wind tunnel. Monodisperse fluorescent aerosols ranging from 0.5 to 20 microm were used to challenge the samplers. Two wind speeds of 0.5 and 2.0 m/sec were employed as the test wind speeds in this study. The test results indicated that the aspiration efficiency of the two test samplers closely agreed with the ACGIH inhalable convention within the size range of the test aerosols. The aspiration efficiency was found to be independent of the sampling orientation. The collection efficiency acquired from these two samplers showed that the 50% cutoff diameters were both around 0.6 microm. However the wall loss of these two test samplers increased as the aerosol size increased, and the wall loss of PAS-4 was considerably higher than that of PAS-5, especially in the aerosol size larger than 5 microm, which resulted in PAS-4 having a relatively lower capture efficiency than PAS-5. Overall, the PAS-5 is considered a better personal bioaerosol sampler than the PAS-4.

Design and development of a self-contained personal electrostatic bioaerosol sampler (PEBS) with a wire-to-wire charger

“…Over the past years, several existing personal samplers for particulate matter were adapted and used for personal and area sampling of bioaerosols, including application of Button Aerosol Sampler and IOM cassette with regular or gelatin filters (Aizenberg et al 2000;Yao and Mainelis 2007;Wu et al 2010;Chang and Hung 2012). Several new personal bioaerosol sampler concepts, such as rotating cup (Gorner et al 2006) and microcentrifuge tube (Lindsley et al 2006;Macher et al 2008;Su et al 2012) have been proposed. In addition to samplers based on inertia and filtration, several electrostatics-based bioaerosol samplers, including those designed for area and even personal sampling, have been developed and applied (Mainelis et al 1999(Mainelis et al , 2002a(Mainelis et al , 2002bYao and Mainelis 2006;Han and Mainelis 2008;Madsen and Sharma 2008;Tan et al 2011;Park et al 2015;Roux et al 2016).…”

International Symposium on Occupational Safety and Hygiene: Proceedings Book of the SHO2013

“…A revisão bibliográfica efetuada evidenciou a importância do conhecimento e reconhecimento dos agentes biológicos, como fatores de risco para a saúde, com capacidade de originar doenças graves e epidémicas (Monteiro, 2011). Apesar da dificuldade em estabelecer valores limite para a concentração de bioaerossóis em ambientes hospitalares, é fundamental a monitorização ambiental e individual (Su et al, 2012) para o desenvolvimento de programas apropriados para a manutenção de uma concentração microbiana baixa nesses ambientes e a ausência de microrganismos que possam significar risco para os seus ocupantes. A monitorização do ar deveria ser recomendada com o objectivo de definir quantidades aceitáveis de contaminantes bacterianos (Sue et al, 2012).…”