Aerosol Particle Transport and Deposition in Upper and Lower Airways of Infant, Child and Adult Human Lungs

Atmosphere

Kejun Dong¹  Ming Zhao²  Md. M. Rahman²  Suvash C. Saha³  Mohammad S. Islam³ 

[1] Center for Infrastructure Engineering, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia;School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia;School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia;

关键词: particle transport and deposition (TD);    airway reduction;    drug-aerosol delivery;    aging effect;    lung generations;    diffusion mechanism;   

DOI  :  10.3390/atmos12111402

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Understanding transportation and deposition (TD) of aerosol particles in the human respiratory system can help clinical treatment of lung diseases using medicines. The lung airway diameters and the breathing capacity of human lungs normally increase with age until the age of 30. Many studies have analyzed the particle TD in the human lung airways. However, the knowledge of the nanoparticle TD in airways of infants and children with varying inhalation flow rates is still limited in the literature. This study investigates nanoparticle (5 nm ≤ d_p ≤ 500 nm) TD in the lungs of infants, children, and adults. The inhalation air flow rates corresponding to three ages are considered as ${\mathrm{Q}}_{\mathrm{in}}=3.22 \mathrm{L}/\min$ (infant), $8.09 \mathrm{L}/\min$ (Child), and ${\mathrm{Q}}_{\mathrm{in}}=14 \mathrm{L}/\min$ (adult). It is found that less particles are deposited in upper lung airways (G0–G3) than in lower airways (G12–G15) in the lungs of all the three age groups. The results suggest that the particle deposition efficiency in lung airways increases with the decrease of particle size due to the Brownian diffusion mechanism. About 3% of 500 nm particles are deposited in airways G12–G15 for the three age groups. As the particle size is decreased to 5 nm, the deposition rate in G12–G15 is increased to over 95%. The present findings can help medical therapy by individually simulating the distribution of drug-aerosol for the patient-specific lung.

【 授权许可】

Unknown