Insights on drying and precipitation dynamics of respiratory droplets from the perspective of COVID-19

Basu, S and Kabi, P and Chaudhuri, S and Saha, A (2020) Insights on drying and precipitation dynamics of respiratory droplets from the perspective of COVID-19. In: Physics of Fluids, 32 (12).

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Abstract

We isolate a nano-colloidal droplet of surrogate mucosalivary fluid to gain fundamental insights into airborne nuclei's infectivity and viral load distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic. The salt-water solution containing particles at reported viral loads is acoustically trapped in a contactless environment to emulate the drying, flow, and precipitation dynamics of real airborne droplets. Similar experiments validate observations with the surrogate fluid with samples of human saliva samples from a healthy subject. A unique feature emerges regarding the final crystallite dimension; it is always 20-30 of the initial droplet diameter for different sizes and ambient conditions. Airborne-precipitates nearly enclose the viral load within its bulk while the substrate precipitates exhibit a high percentage (�80-90) of exposed virions (depending on the surface). This work demonstrates the leveraging of an inert nano-colloidal system to gain insights into an equivalent biological system. © 2020 Author(s).

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Physics of Fluids
Publisher:	American Institute of Physics Inc.
Additional Information:	Copyright to this article belongs to American Institute of Physics Inc.
Keywords:	Drops; Sols, Ambient conditions; Colloidal droplets; Colloidal system; Crystallite dimension; Different sizes; Droplet diameters; Healthy subjects; Unique features, Precipitation (chemical)
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Mechanical Engineering
Date Deposited:	05 Feb 2021 05:48
Last Modified:	05 Feb 2021 05:48
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/67881

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