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Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh

Face masks play a critical role in reducing the transmission risk of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases. Masks made with nanofibers have drawn increasingly more attention because of their higher filtration efficiency, better comfort, and lower pressure drop. However, the interactions and conseq...

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Autores principales: Yu, Boyang, Chen, Jian, Chen, Daner, Chen, Rouxi, Wang, Yuenan, Tang, Xiujuan, Wang, Hsing-Lin, Wang, Lian-Ping, Deng, Weiwei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: AIP Publishing LLC 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8450899/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34552315
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0061847
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author Yu, Boyang
Chen, Jian
Chen, Daner
Chen, Rouxi
Wang, Yuenan
Tang, Xiujuan
Wang, Hsing-Lin
Wang, Lian-Ping
Deng, Weiwei
author_facet Yu, Boyang
Chen, Jian
Chen, Daner
Chen, Rouxi
Wang, Yuenan
Tang, Xiujuan
Wang, Hsing-Lin
Wang, Lian-Ping
Deng, Weiwei
author_sort Yu, Boyang
collection PubMed
description Face masks play a critical role in reducing the transmission risk of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases. Masks made with nanofibers have drawn increasingly more attention because of their higher filtration efficiency, better comfort, and lower pressure drop. However, the interactions and consequences of the nanofibers and microwater droplets remain unclear. In this work, the evolution of fibers made of polymers with different contact angles, diameters, and mesh sizes under water aerosol exposure is systematically visualized. The images show that capillarity is very strong compared with the elasticity of the nanofiber. The nanofibers coalesce irreversibly during the droplet capture stage as well as the subsequent liquid evaporation stage. The fiber coalescence significantly reduces the effective fiber length for capturing aerosols. The nanofiber mesh that undergoes multiple droplet capture/evaporation cycles exhibits a fiber coalescing fraction of 40%–58%. The hydrophobic and orthogonally woven fibers can reduce the capillary forces and decrease the fiber coalescing fraction. This finding is expected to assist the proper design, fabrication, and use of face masks with nanofibers. It also provides direct visual evidence on the necessity to replace face masks frequently, especially in cold environments.
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spelling pubmed-84508992021-09-20 Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh Yu, Boyang Chen, Jian Chen, Daner Chen, Rouxi Wang, Yuenan Tang, Xiujuan Wang, Hsing-Lin Wang, Lian-Ping Deng, Weiwei Phys Fluids (1994) ARTICLES Face masks play a critical role in reducing the transmission risk of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases. Masks made with nanofibers have drawn increasingly more attention because of their higher filtration efficiency, better comfort, and lower pressure drop. However, the interactions and consequences of the nanofibers and microwater droplets remain unclear. In this work, the evolution of fibers made of polymers with different contact angles, diameters, and mesh sizes under water aerosol exposure is systematically visualized. The images show that capillarity is very strong compared with the elasticity of the nanofiber. The nanofibers coalesce irreversibly during the droplet capture stage as well as the subsequent liquid evaporation stage. The fiber coalescence significantly reduces the effective fiber length for capturing aerosols. The nanofiber mesh that undergoes multiple droplet capture/evaporation cycles exhibits a fiber coalescing fraction of 40%–58%. The hydrophobic and orthogonally woven fibers can reduce the capillary forces and decrease the fiber coalescing fraction. This finding is expected to assist the proper design, fabrication, and use of face masks with nanofibers. It also provides direct visual evidence on the necessity to replace face masks frequently, especially in cold environments. AIP Publishing LLC 2021-09 2021-09-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8450899/ /pubmed/34552315 http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0061847 Text en © 2021 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ).
spellingShingle ARTICLES
Yu, Boyang
Chen, Jian
Chen, Daner
Chen, Rouxi
Wang, Yuenan
Tang, Xiujuan
Wang, Hsing-Lin
Wang, Lian-Ping
Deng, Weiwei
Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh
title Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh
title_full Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh
title_fullStr Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh
title_full_unstemmed Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh
title_short Visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh
title_sort visualization of the interaction of water aerosol and nanofiber mesh
topic ARTICLES
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8450899/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34552315
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/5.0061847
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