Moshman Research recently developed a Covid-19 Breathalyzer which would allow for personal, persistent and non-invasive testing for the coronavirus. We came up with a creative way to filter out the non-covid bioaerosols from your breath and only measure covid.
In your breath are bioaerosols about 1-10 microns in size. Our novel idea uses the difference is size, and therefore mass, to filter out the bioaerosols that are not the size of Covid-19. When a patient breathes into the tube, a focusing element forces the air and bioaerosols through a small hole. The smaller, covid bioaerosols maintain a constant stream size while the larger bioaerosols have more inertia so they continue to focus to a smaller size stream.
We used this feature of the problem to then design the particle sorter in 3D drawing software and incorporate it into the existing design and simulation. The figure below shows the novel particle sorter. Larger bioaerosols, focused to the center, are directed out through vents while covid bioaerosols pass through. We demonstrated the proof-of-concept; eight times as many covid bioaerosols make it to the sensor than non-covid. The next step would be to optimize the design.
This video shows the fluid and structure geometry being generated with automatic scripting.
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