Abstract View
New Tools for a New Virus
TIMOTHY GORDON, Patricia Keady, Dominick Heskett, Braden Stump, Brian Annis, Touzong Xiong, Mark R. Stolzenburg, Aerosol Devices Inc.
Abstract Number: 570
Working Group: The Role of Aerosol Science in the Understanding of the Spread and Control of COVID-19 and Other Infectious Diseases
Abstract
Although common sense suggests that aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 must be an important vector for the transmission of COVID-19, no public studies have yet shown that viable SARS-CoV-2 can be isolated from ambient aerosol, nor do we know typical size distributions of virus particles or the number of virions per particle. Aerosol Devices Inc is developing new instrumentation, based on condensation growth tube (CGT) technology, to enable researchers to answer basic questions currently hampering mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have used finite element analysis to model laminar flow, heat/mass transfer and condensation-driven droplet growth in our initial CGT design to minimize instrument footprint and impaction losses. Our model determines where condensation of supersaturated vapor begins along a particle’s trajectory and then calculates the subsequent droplet growth, accounting for the Kelvin effect on the equilibrium vapor pressure over a curved surface and non-continuum regime transport of both vapor and latent heat from the droplet. In this presentation we discuss how we are using this model to guide the development of the CGT as a “front end” for a virus collection/detection platform. Components of the platform may be swapped out depending on the needs of the particular application. For example, we are currently collaborating with two universities to integrate into the platform two different virus detectors based on unrelated technologies. In collaboration with colleagues from several other universities, we are developing instruments from the same basic platform that do not directly detect viruses but preserve them either in viable form as a concentrated liquid suspension or inactivated on a solid genomic preservative for subsequent laboratory analysis.