Basu, S;
Kabi, P;
Chaudhuri, S;
Saha, A;
(2020)
Insights on drying and precipitation dynamics of respiratory droplets from the perspective of COVID-19.
Physics of Fluids
, 32
(12)
, Article 123317. 10.1063/5.0037360.
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Abstract
We isolate a nano-colloidal droplet of surrogate mucosalivary fluid to gain fundamental insights into airborne nuclei's infectivity and viral load distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic. The salt-water solution containing particles at reported viral loads is acoustically trapped in a contactless environment to emulate the drying, flow, and precipitation dynamics of real airborne droplets. Similar experiments validate observations with the surrogate fluid with samples of human saliva samples from a healthy subject. A unique feature emerges regarding the final crystallite dimension; it is always 20%-30% of the initial droplet diameter for different sizes and ambient conditions. Airborne-precipitates nearly enclose the viral load within its bulk while the substrate precipitates exhibit a high percentage (∼80-90%) of exposed virions (depending on the surface). This work demonstrates the leveraging of an inert nano-colloidal system to gain insights into an equivalent biological system.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Insights on drying and precipitation dynamics of respiratory droplets from the perspective of COVID-19 |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1063/5.0037360 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0037360 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Mechanical Engineering |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10136027 |
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