Optimized mechanism for fast removal of infectious pathogen-laden aerosols in the negative-pressure unit.
J Hazard Mater
; 435: 128978, 2022 08 05.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1796502
ABSTRACT
It has been frequently emphasized that highly contagious respiratory disease pathogens (such as SARS-CoV-2) are transmitted to the other hosts in the form of micro-sized aerosols (< 5 µm) in the air without physical contacts. Hospital environments such as negative-pressure unit are considered being consistently exposed to pathogens, so it is essential to quickly discharge them through the effective ventilation system. To achieve that, in the present study, we propose the optimized ventilation mechanism and design for the fastest removal of pathogen-laden aerosol using numerical simulations. We quantitatively evaluated the aerosol removal performance of various ventilation configurations (combinations of air exhaust and supply ducts), and found that the key mechanism is to form the coherent (preferentially upward) airflow structure to surround the respiratory flow containing the aerosol cluster. We believe that the present findings will play a critical role in developing the high-efficiency negative-pressure facility irrespective of its size and environments.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Air Filters
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
J Hazard Mater
Journal subject:
Environmental Health
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.jhazmat.2022.128978
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