Advances in Chemical Contaminants and Biological Droplets Dispersion into Indoor Environment

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Air Quality".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2021) | Viewed by 2992

Special Issue Editors

School of Medicine, European University Cyprus, Egkomi 2404, Cyprus
Interests: health risk assessment; occupational health & safety; public health; air pollution; process safety
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Energy and Environmental Design of Buildings Research Lab., Faculty of Engineering, University of Cyprus, 2109 Nicosia, Cyprus
Interests: conventional and renewable energy sources; hybrid and conjugated energy systems; HVAC systems; energy savings; energy management; implementation of energy technologies in buildings, built environment, and industry; energy and environmental assessment; technoeconomic analysis; efficient energy use; thermal comfort; indoor air quality
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Atmospheric Chemistry & Innovative Technologies Laboratory, Institute of Nuclear & Radiological Sciences & Technology, Energy & Safety, National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, 15310 Agia Paraskevi, Greece
Interests: indoor air quality; air pollution; source apportionment; particulate matter physics and chemistry; ventilation; exposure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few months, we have been witnesses of an unprecedented pandemic outburst due to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The rapid spread of COVID-19 has had a major influence on our daily lives and habits, as well as the way we interact with each other. Many state governments have enforced nationwide street restrictions on public movement on their citizens in the hope of controlling and reducing the related risk of infection to the population, as well as the number of deaths. During a pandemic outburst, people usually spend most of their time into enclosed indoor building environments, increasing the cross-infection risk due to the space limitation and poor air ventilation. As a result, it is essential to investigate the characteristics and dispersion mechanisms of chemical and biological airborne particles among occupants into indoor building environments with the aim of controlling the spread of infectious disease. Despite the great improvements that have been achieved in the fields of microbiology, epidemiology, physics, and engineering, it still remains a challenge to fully understand the mechanisms of microorganism spread and dynamics of droplet formation among occupants under different characteristics and conditions of the building’s indoor environment, including the operation of HVAC systems.

This Special Issue invites high-quality scientific articles related to the current understanding of chemical contaminants and biological droplet dispersion into indoor environment, using advanced numerical (e.g., computational fluid dynamics) and experimental (e.g. flow and tracing gas) methods. Topics of interest for the Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:

  • Human exhalation flow;
  • Measurements of the concentration field in breathing zones and imaging visualization of expiratory flows;
  • Quantitatively evaluated cross-infection risk;
  • Aerosols and tracing gas techniques;
  • Ventilation strategy and occupancy load;
  • Exposure assessment;
  • Airborne virus particles.

Dr. Christos D. Argyropoulos
Dr. Apostolos Michopoulos
Dr. Dikaia E. Saraga
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • indoor air
  • computational fluid dynamics
  • aerosols
  • bioaerosols
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • COVID-19
  • dispersion exhaled breathing droplets
  • ventilation
  • resuspension
  • building environment
  • cross-infection risk
  • airborne transmission
  • indoor air quality
  • chemical hazards
  • biological hazards
  • airborne contaminants
  • indoor environmental health
  • chemical contaminants
  • biological contaminants
  • living conditions
  • health
  • Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes model
  • large eddy simulation
  • direct numerical simulation
  • multizone air modelling

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

9 pages, 743 KiB  
Article
Droplet Fate in a Cough Puff
by Paolo Martano
Atmosphere 2020, 11(8), 841; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/atmos11080841 - 09 Aug 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2356
Abstract
The dynamic and thermodynamic evolution of droplets, in a size range characterizing a cough, has been analysed using basic equations of motion and coupled to the evolution of a spherical cloud puff in which they are supposed to be expired. It has been [...] Read more.
The dynamic and thermodynamic evolution of droplets, in a size range characterizing a cough, has been analysed using basic equations of motion and coupled to the evolution of a spherical cloud puff in which they are supposed to be expired. It has been found that the maximum contamination range of the emitted droplets is controlled by two different mechanisms: surface evaporation and inertia-gravitational settling—with a switching threshold between them for a radius around a few tens of microns. For the smallest droplets, the environmental conditions (the temperature and humidity) are found to be very effective in determining the contamination range, even for weak entrainment in the cloud puff. This last fact could be of some relevance in the seasonal behaviour of air-borne epidemics. Full article
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