AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Deposition of Carbon Nanotubes in a Human Nasal Airway Replica
WEI-CHUNG SU, Bahman Asgharian, Yung-Sung Cheng, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute
Abstract Number: 392 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) aerosols may appear in related workplaces in nanometer size range where they could be inhaled by the workers causing potential health problems. Therefore, investigating the deposition of CNTs in the human airway is important and necessary to assess the health risk posed by the occupational exposure to these particles. This study used a nebulizer to aerosolize Stacked-cup Carbon Nanotube (SCCNT) and Single-walled Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT), and employed an electrostatic classifier to classify the CNT aerosols by electrical mobility. The size-classified CNT aerosols were then measured by a sequential mobility particle sizer (SMPS), an electrostatic precipitator (ESP), a micro-orifice uniform deposition impactor (MOUDI), and a TEM to obtain their physical characteristics and morphology. The deposition study was conducted by delivering the size-classified CNT aerosols into a well-defined human nasal airway replica. The deposition fractions and deposition efficiencies of the CNT aerosols in the nasal airway were determined by the concentration ratios of the CNT aerosols measured at the inlet and the outlets of the replica. The deposition results showed that very few CNT aerosols were deposited in the nasal airway which implies that most of the size-classified CNTs in this study could easily transport down to the lower human airway. The results suggest that the deposition mechanism for the size-classified CNT aerosols, studied in this work, is likely diffusion. These data acquired will be used in the development of a human respiratory tract deposition model for related CNTs.