AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Simultaneous Experimentation for Indoor Aerosol Transport Studies Using DNATrax
CYNTHIA J. KAESER, George R. Farquar, Joanne J. Osburn, A. Daniel Jones, Elizabeth K. Wheeler, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Abstract Number: 421 Working Group: Indoor Aerosols
Abstract Developed as a safe, traceable material for indoor aerosol transport studies, DNA Tagged Reagents for Aerosol eXperiments (DNATrax) allows multiple aerosol transport experiments to be performed in the same space either sequentially or simultaneously without intermediate decontamination and under identical conditions. Comprised of a synthetic, non-coding DNA oligonucleotide as a unique barcode and a food-grade carrier, DNATrax is both safe for human exposure and has near-limitless potential for barcode variation. In this presentation, we show the results of a multiple aerosol release experiment in an occupied indoor space. In addition, the presentation will detail the progress on developing simple passive sampling methods for aerosol experiments.
To fully understand the effect of complex airflow on aerosol dispersion in occupied locations, experimentation should be done with high spatial resolution and in a reproducible way. Passive sampling of deposited aerosols provides high spatial resolution without disruption of the test space’s natural airflow. The low detection limits of the TaqMan polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay used for barcode-specific detection allows quantification of nanogram quantities of collected DNATrax material and quantifies each individual barcode without interference from additional barcodes present. The low detection limit and clear barcode differentiation allows multiple particle releases to be simultaneously performed and decoupled at the end, ensuring the same conditions for all released aerosols and eliminating costly decontamination of the space between experiments.
In the experiment detailed in this presentation, a total of four DNATrax barcodes were used with two aerosolized in each of two directions and collected using passive sampling. This yielded two individual data sets for each direction that were generated under identical release and airflow conditions, demonstrating reproducibility of the deposition pattern with one meter sampling resolution. With the airflow in the space undisturbed, the effect of the release direction on particle dispersion was clearly observed.
Prepared by LLNL under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL IM release number LLNL-ABS-669750.