The mechanical effect of moisturization on airborne COVID-19 transmission and its potential use as control technique
Mounting evidence from scientific community seems to suggest that COVID-19 virus can potentially spread by airborne transmission. As a result, methods and techniques for preventing environmental contagious, such as ventilation or air filtration have been proposed. Here, it is investigated the effect...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/343201 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/343201 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.110940 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | COVID-19 (Disease) COVID-19 (Disease)--Environmental aspects COVID-19 (Disease)--Transmission Airborne infection--Prevention Airborne COVID-19 Airborne transmission Moisturization COVID-19 (Malaltia) COVID-19 (Malaltia) -- Aspectes ambientals |
| Sumario: | Mounting evidence from scientific community seems to suggest that COVID-19 virus can potentially spread by airborne transmission. As a result, methods and techniques for preventing environmental contagious, such as ventilation or air filtration have been proposed. Here, it is investigated the effect of moisturization on airborne COVID-19 transmission from a mechanical point of view in which comparatively large water droplets promote the growth -by collision and coalescence, of suspended airborne COVID-19 and then accelerating its gravitational settling. Utilizing a classical raindrop collisional model from cloud science and the available experimental data an expression for the removal time of suspended airborne COVID-19 as function of the relative humidity was derived. The mechanical model is in good agreement with the recent reported experimental research in which high temperature and high relative humidity reduce COVID-19 contagious and then is a point in favor of the mechanic model of the effect of moisture in the COVID-19 airborne transmission. The results encourage further research on the deliberate moisturization of room air (by using ceiling mounted humidifiers) as a potential technique for control of airborne COVID-19 transmission |
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