Real-time bioaerosol detecting via combination of cyclone based collecting system and SiNW biosensor

Abstract

The recent outbreak of coronavirus has raised people’s awareness of respiratory diseases by creating unprecedentedly high infection rates and deaths. Accordingly, the importance of indoor air quality management and the need for regulations have emerged, and various indoor air quality management activities such as ventilation and mask wearing have been carried out. However, unlike these efforts, real-time analysis of internal airborne bioaerosols still needs a lot of improvement. The naturally very low concentration of bioaerosols makes them unsuitable for existing biosensor research in development, which requires highly concentrated liquid samples. Therefore, it is necessary to collect high concentration of bioaerosol with liquid form in real time. In this study, by utilizing cyclone sampler, continuous sampling obtaining highly concentrated bioaerosol sample can be achieved rather than the existing discontinuous impactor method, and a study was conducted to implement real-time analysis based on silicon nanowire biosensor. Structural optimization was performed based on computational fluid dynamics analysis of the air flow inside the bioaerosol sampler, and the performance was investigated using Aspergillus niger fungus and standard particles, which show a low cut-off size of 0.5 um. Finally, possibility of real-time analysis was confirmed through continuous collection test. The proposed technology is expected to make a significant contribution to the systematic management of indoor air quality management and the prevention of respiratory diseases through linkage with internet of things technology.