Cargando…

How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces

Our previous study [R. Bhardwaj and A. Agrawal, “Likelihood of survival of coronavirus in a respiratory droplet deposited on a solid surface,” Phys. Fluids 32, 061704 (2020)] showed that the drying time of typical respiratory droplets is on the order of seconds, while the survival time of the corona...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bhardwaj, Rajneesh, Agrawal, Amit
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: AIP Publishing LLC 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7713872/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33281435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0033306
_version_ 1783618635184472064
author Bhardwaj, Rajneesh
Agrawal, Amit
author_facet Bhardwaj, Rajneesh
Agrawal, Amit
author_sort Bhardwaj, Rajneesh
collection PubMed
description Our previous study [R. Bhardwaj and A. Agrawal, “Likelihood of survival of coronavirus in a respiratory droplet deposited on a solid surface,” Phys. Fluids 32, 061704 (2020)] showed that the drying time of typical respiratory droplets is on the order of seconds, while the survival time of the coronavirus on different surfaces was reported to be on the order of hours in recent experiments. We attribute the long survival time of the coronavirus on a surface to the slow evaporation of a thin nanometer liquid film remaining after the evaporation of the bulk droplet. Accordingly, we employ a computational model for a thin film in which the evaporating mass rate is a function of disjoining and Laplace pressures inside the film. The model shows a strong dependence on the initial thickness of the film and suggests that the drying time of this nanometric film is on the order of hours, consistent with the survival time of the coronavirus on a surface, seen in published experiments. We briefly examine the change in the drying time as a function of the contact angle and type of surface. The computed time-varying film thickness or volume qualitatively agrees with the measured decay of the coronavirus titer on different surfaces. The present work provides insights on why coronavirus survival is on the order of hours or days on a solid surface under ambient conditions.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7713872
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher AIP Publishing LLC
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-77138722020-12-03 How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces Bhardwaj, Rajneesh Agrawal, Amit Phys Fluids (1994) Letters Our previous study [R. Bhardwaj and A. Agrawal, “Likelihood of survival of coronavirus in a respiratory droplet deposited on a solid surface,” Phys. Fluids 32, 061704 (2020)] showed that the drying time of typical respiratory droplets is on the order of seconds, while the survival time of the coronavirus on different surfaces was reported to be on the order of hours in recent experiments. We attribute the long survival time of the coronavirus on a surface to the slow evaporation of a thin nanometer liquid film remaining after the evaporation of the bulk droplet. Accordingly, we employ a computational model for a thin film in which the evaporating mass rate is a function of disjoining and Laplace pressures inside the film. The model shows a strong dependence on the initial thickness of the film and suggests that the drying time of this nanometric film is on the order of hours, consistent with the survival time of the coronavirus on a surface, seen in published experiments. We briefly examine the change in the drying time as a function of the contact angle and type of surface. The computed time-varying film thickness or volume qualitatively agrees with the measured decay of the coronavirus titer on different surfaces. The present work provides insights on why coronavirus survival is on the order of hours or days on a solid surface under ambient conditions. AIP Publishing LLC 2020-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7713872/ /pubmed/33281435 http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0033306 Text en © 2020 Author(s) Published under license by AIP Publishing. 1070-6631/2020/32(11)/111706/7/$30.00 All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Letters
Bhardwaj, Rajneesh
Agrawal, Amit
How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces
title How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces
title_full How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces
title_fullStr How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces
title_full_unstemmed How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces
title_short How coronavirus survives for days on surfaces
title_sort how coronavirus survives for days on surfaces
topic Letters
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7713872/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33281435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0033306
work_keys_str_mv AT bhardwajrajneesh howcoronavirussurvivesfordaysonsurfaces
AT agrawalamit howcoronavirussurvivesfordaysonsurfaces