Penetration of sub-micron aerosol droplets in composite cylindrical filtration elements

Advection–diffusion transport of aerosol droplets in composite cylindrical filtration elements is analyzed and compared to experimental data. The penetration, characterizing the fraction of droplets that passes through the pores of a filtration element, is quantified for a range of flow rates. The advection–diffusion transport in a laminar Poiseuille flow is treated numerically for slender pores using a finite difference approach in cylindrical coordinates. The algebraic dependence of the penetration on the Peclet number as predicted theoretically, is confirmed by experimental findings at a variety of aspect ratios of the cylindrical pores. The effective penetration associated with a composite filtration element consisting of a set of parallel cylindrical pores is derived. The overall penetration of heterogeneous composite filtration elements shows an algebraic dependence to the fourth power on the radii of the individual pores that are contained. This gives rise to strong variations in the overall penetration in cases with uneven distributions of pore sizes, highly favoring filtration by the larger pores. The overall penetration is computed for a number of basic geometries, providing a point of reference for filtration design and experimental verification