Production and characterization of bioaerosols for model validation in spacecraft environment
Anniina Salmela , Eero Kokkonen , Ilpo Kulmala , Anna-Maria Veijalainen , Rob van Houdt , Natalie Leys , Audrey Berthier , Ilyin Viacheslav , Sergey Kharin , Julia Morozova , Alexander Tikhomirov , Pertti Pasanen
DOI:10.1016/j.jes.2017.10.016
Received March 17, 2017,Revised , Accepted October 26, 2017, Available online November 07, 2017
Volume 30,2018,Pages 227-238
This study aimed to evaluate the suitability of two bioaerosol generation systems (dry and wet generation) for the aerosolization of microorganisms isolated from the International Space Station, and to calibrate the produced bioaerosols to fulfill the requirements of computational fluid dynamics model (CFD) validation. Concentration, stability, size distribution, agglomeration of generated bioaerosol and deposition of bioaerosols were analyzed. In addition, the dispersion of non-viable particles in the air was studied. Experiments proved that wet generation from microbial suspensions could be used for the production of well-calibrated and stabile bioaerosols for model validation. For the simulation of the natural release of fungal spores, a dry generation method should be used. This study showed that the used CFD model simulated the spread of non-viable particles fairly well. The mathematical deposition model by Lai and Nazaroff could be used to estimate the deposition velocities of bioaerosols on surfaces, although it somewhat underestimated the measured deposition velocities.
