AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
A Field-deployable Electrostatic Collector for Bioaerosols with High Concentration Rate
TAEWON HAN, Donna Fennell, Gediminas Mainelis, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Abstract Number: 125 Working Group: Bioaerosols: Characterization and Environmental Impact
Abstract In our earlier research, we developed and optimized an electrostatic precipitator with superhydrophobic surface (EPSS) for bioaerosols, including selection of housing and electrode materials and ionizer configuration. Its latest version shows an overall collection efficiency of up to 84% when sampling Escherichia coli bacteria at 10 L/min and accumulating the bacteria in rolling water droplets as small as 20 micro-liters thus achieving a very high sample concentration rate (up to 4.2 × 10^5/min). However, these results were achieved with bench scale components, such as large power supplies, liquid injection via pipetting and use of external pumps. For the application and testing of this technology in the field, the sampler’s components must be integrated into a field-deployable instrument. The objective of the next project phase is to integrate all component parts, e.g., charger, sampler, fan, batteries, DC-to-DC converters, peristaltic pump, liquid reservoir, and collection vial into a field-deployable novel bioaerosol sampler.
In the integrated sampler, bioaerosol particles are collected onto a narrow electrode and a collecting droplet is injected automatically using a small peristaltic pump attached to the sampler. The collection liquid is provided by an attached reservoir. The size and frequency of the droplets are controlled by adjusting the diameter of the injection needle and the operating time of the peristaltic pump. Due to the inclination of the collection chamber, the liquid droplet rolls down the electrode picking up the deposited biological particles and is collected in a vial located at the end of the collection chamber. The collection air flow is provided by an integrated battery-operated fan. The charging and collection voltages are supplied via battery-operated miniature DC-to-DC converters. Once the integration is completed, the bioaerosol sampler will be tested in the field against several commercial bioaerosol samplers.