Regional deposition of particles smaller than 100 nm in Taiwanese airways: An in vitro study

• Main Authors: Jeng-Hung Li, 李政泓
• Other Authors: Der-Jen Hsu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/p55nr2

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 環境與安全衛生工程研究所 === 102 === Many studies have confirmed that particles in nano sizes could cause health adverse effect to human, however, the information regarding the deposition area and the amount of deposition is essential before the health effects can be evaluated. Most previous deposition studies were mainly based on the replicate casts or human volunteers of Caucasians. Given this, the present study measured the deposition efficiency of particles ranging from 18.1 to 98.2 under four different respiratory flow rates by using three Taiwanese’s airways models including in nasal cavity, nasopharynx and larynx and trachea. The results of this study showed that the deposition efficiency decreases with the increasing respiratory flow rates and increasing particle sizes. The result of regional deposition shows that nasal cavity is the highest, followed by trachea, and the nasopharynx and larynx is the least. Additionally, nasal airway particle deposition efficiency from Taiwanese models seems to be higher than that of Caucasians. One possible reason is that, compared to Caucasians, nasal geometry in Taiwanese adults is more complex. This study also found very large difference in the nasal deposition efficiency, which may be resulted from the great variation of nasal cavity structure among the human subjects. An empirical equation, adapting diffusion parameter, was developed to represent the particle deposition of Taiwanese adults. This study suggests that more research efforts are needed to characterize the deposition efficiency of Taiwanese, so that the risk assessment of inhalation dosage can be based.