Lagrangian/Eulerian model of coagulation and deposition of inhaled particles in the human lung

Abstract

The primary objectives of the present study were to mathematically describe particle coagulation within the human respiratory tract and to analyze its impact on local particle deposition patterns for high concentrations of inhaled cigarette smoke particles. Coagulation mechanisms simulated were thermal motion, gravitational settling, laminar shear, turbulences, electrical charges, and inertial effects at airway bifurcations. To implement concentration dependent coagulation processes, the Lagrangian random walk deposition model IDEAL, simulating the paths of an individual particle, was modified by tracking the random path of an elemental air volume containing the full size distribution, thus adding an Eulerian element to the Lagrangian random path model. In this combined Lagrangian/Eulerian deposition model, the initial size distribution is continuously modified by coagulation, hygroscopic growth and deposition. For the specific inhalation conditions and the cigarette smoke size distribution assumed in this study, thermal diffusion is by far the greatest source of coagulation, with a minor contribution of laminar shear in peripheral airway generations.Number deposition, which comprises the loss of inhaled particles not only by deposition but also by coagulation, and mass deposition fractions were computed for different puff and breath-hold scenarios as a function of lung generation numbers. The main reduction of the number of inhaled particles in the respiratory tract occurs in the mouth due to coagulation, accompanied by a significant shift of the size distribution to larger particle diameters. In the lung, particle loss is caused primarily by deposition due to diffusion with a preferential deposition of smaller particle diameters. In the size range from about 250 to 500nm, the number concentration of particles in the exhaled air is higher than that in the inhaled air, indicating that the production of particles in this size range by coagulation is greater than the loss by coagulation to larger sizes and deposition.