10th International Aerosol Conference
September 2 - September 7, 2018
America's Center Convention Complex
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Abstract View


A Novel Approach for Investigating Workplace Ultrafine Particles Respiratory Deposition

WEI-CHUNG SU, Yi Chen, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

     Abstract Number: 190
     Working Group: Workplace Aerosol

Abstract
Ultrafine particles (UFPs) in workplace has been and continues to be an important occupational health concern. Many workplace operational processes, such as welding and combustion, are known to generate UFPs in workplace. The inhalation and the consequent deposition of UFPs in the worker’s lower airways could lead to adverse health effects. Therefore, investigating the deposition of UFPs in the human respiratory tract is vital from the viewpoint of occupational health. Conducting experiments on UFP respiratory deposition using human airway replicas can provide valuable information of the deposition pattern and deposition efficiency of the inhaled UFPs. However, due to the limitations of the current experimental approach, it is difficult to conduct UFP respiratory deposition experiments in the human lower airways. As a result, the nature of UFP deposition in the human airways remains not well understood. To fill this gap, a novel experimental method has been developed in this study to measure the deposition of UFP in the lower respiratory tract. A hollow human tracheobronchial airway replica down to the 10th lung generation was made by a 3D printer. The tracheobronchial airway replica along with a human oral airway replica were used to build a simplified airway system. With the assistance of two GRIMM SMPS+C systems, and a series of trimmed airway replicas (modified based on lung generations), UFP deposition in individual lung generation of the tracheobronchial airways could be directly and systematically measured by the experimental approach developed. The deposition data acquired can be applied to estimate the UFP inhalation dosimetry for UFP related workers, and used for validating relevant numerical simulation data.