Lung Deposition of Airborne Particles - Resolved in a Single Breath

Sammanfattning: Exposure to airborne particulate matter has been declared to cause cardiovascular and respiratory disease as well as cancer. By understanding how the aerosol particles deposit in our respiratory tract, we can understand how the exposure to airborne particles affect our health. The health effects partly depend on which type of particles that we are exposed to, but also how sensitive we are as individuals. In this thesis a set-up was built for studying the airborne particles in the breathing zone, with time resolution in each breath. The set-up was developed after investigating previous set-ups in literature and consists of three main modules, i.e. an aerosol generation module, an inhalation system and a particle detection unit. The stability and output of different nebulizers were tested, the breathing-flow module was calibrated, and the inhalation system was designed and 3D-printed. The final set-up was designed to minimize losses and allow for spontaneous breathing. A fast CPC was used to characterize the final set-up for abrupt flow changes and also for a realistic breathing pattern of an adult, generated by a breathing simulator. The CPC showed a proof of concept with respect to the time resolution requirements for the designed set-up. However, due to fluctuations in the CPC sample flow during high inhalation and exhalation flowrates there is a need for a more reliable and stable measurement device with high time resolution before using the suggested set-up in real lung deposition studies.