Characterization of Vibrating Mesh Aerosol Generators
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Chan, Wei-Hsiang
Abstract
Recently developed vibrating mesh nebulizers have been reported to have increased output efficiency, minimal residual volume, and high percentage of particles in the emitted respirable and fine particle fraction. This work aimed to investigate and identify the major operating parameters of vibrating mesh nebulizers and their effects on the characteristics of aerosol output.
The vibrating mesh plates were customarily made to contain 279~4606 tapered holes. The aperture size was uniform on each plate and varied from 3 to 12 μm. The aperture distance also varied from 75 to 450 μm, to examine the potential of droplet coagulation. The aperture plates vibrated at a fixed frequency (100~300 kHz), which caused the ejection of liquid droplets. These nebulizers were mainly evaluated with 0.9% sodium chloride solution. A syringe pump was employed to carry the solution to the vibrating mesh plate. An aerosol size spectrometer (Welas 3000) was employed to measure the aerosol number concentration and size distribution.
The droplet size was found to increase with increasing aperture diameter. The distance between apertures and the frequency applied to the mesh plate did not significantly affect the aerosol concentration and size distribution. For each vibrating mesh of different aperture size and aperture number, there is an optimal vibrating frequency to stably deliver maximum amount of aerosol output. This maximum feeding rate increased with increasing aperture number and applied electric current, but the aerosol size distribution remained the same. Vibrating mesh aerosol generators can be orientation independent, if equipped with capillary transport device, such as fibrous absorbent materials.
Subjects
Nebulizer
respiratory care
aerosol generation
vibrating mesh
vibrating aperture plate
lung deposition
Type
thesis
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