Precipitation of submicron charged particles in human lung airways

Abstract

Precipitation of charged particles in a tube by their own space charge is investigated theoretically, when the number density of the particles is large enough so that the potential is a smooth function given by Poisson’s equation, and when the number density is small so that only the image force is important. These two approaches have been applied to the data given by Weibel for the human lung, to determine the deposition probabibilities at different generations for submicron particles when the particle density is 1×105 particles/cm3. The results indicate that the electrostatic dispersion can only lead to a small effect on the lung deposition, the predominant effect is due to the image force exerted on the particles.