Dynamics of particle size on inhalation of environmental aerosol and impact on deposition fraction

Allen E Haddrell*, James F Davies, Jonathan P Reid

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

38 Citations (Scopus)
1659 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Inhalation of elevated levels of particulate air pollution has been shown to elicit the onset of adverse health effects in humans, where the magnitude of the response is a product of where in the lung the particulate dose is delivered. At any point in time during inhalation the depositional flux of the aerosol is a function of the radius of the droplet, thus a detailed understanding of the rate and magnitude of the mass flux of water to the droplet during inhalation is crucial. In this study, we assess the impact of aerosol hygroscopicity on deposited dose through the inclusion of a detailed treatment of the mass flux of water to account for the dynamics of particle size in a modified version of the standard International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) whole lung deposition model. The ability to account for the role of the relative humidity (RH) of the aerosol prior to, and during, inhalation on the deposition pattern is explored, and found to have a significant effect on the deposition pattern. The model is verified by comparison to previously published measurements, and used to demonstrate that ambient RH affects where in the lung indoor particulate air pollution is delivered.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)14512-14521
Number of pages10
JournalEnvironmental Science and Technology
Volume49
Issue number24
Early online date2 Nov 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Dec 2015

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