Selective Deflection and Localization of Flowing Aerosols onto a Substrate

Pulsed airflow cued by the fluorescence spectrum of a particular aerosol can be used to distinguish and deflect particles of biological origin out of an aerosol stream, permitting concentration of these particles for subsequent analysis (Pan et al. 2004 Pan, Y. L., Boutou, V., Bottiger, J. R., Zhang, S. S., Wolf, J. P. and Chang, R. K. 2004. A Puff of Air Sorts Bioaerosols for Pathogen Identification. Aerosol Sci. Technol., 38: 598–602. CROSSREF]CSA]Taylor & Francis Online], Web of Science ®] , Google Scholar]). However, these high velocity pulses of air have an inherent tendency to scatter particles, confounding efforts to concentrate these deflected particles for analysis. The ability to concentrate large numbers of biological particles into a small area on a collection substrate is particularly important for more species-specific techniques such as Raman and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infra-Red) spectroscopy, which require long integration times due to their weak signal strength. In the present work, a simple method is developed for deflecting and localizing particles after classification by a pulsed airflow. The concept is both modeled and experimentally tested. A specially designed funnel is used to localize the scattered particles onto an area of substrate as small as 1 mm in diameter. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to investigate the interaction of the pulsed airflow with the deflected particles and the localizing funnel, in order to gain insight into design parameters and operating conditions that affect the efficiency of this technique. The results show that the combination of pulsed airflow with a localizing funnel effectively deflects and localizes the concentrated bioaerosol onto a small area of substrate or an opening of a microfluidic cell.