A team of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ researchers is looking at changing peopleβs saliva to help manage the spread of COVID-19 as the nation gets ready to go back to work and school.
The team is doing this through a recently awarded National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research Award for $200,000 to explore reducing COVID-19 transmission by making saliva heavier and stickier using candy or corn starch to help sneeze and cough particles fall rather than float.
The approach could lead to creating something as simple as a cough drop or lozenge that people would pop in their mouths before going into the grocery store, work or school.
βOne way to kind of think about it is, for example, clouds are just little, tiny droplets that are suspended in the air for hours, and they just flow with the atmosphere,β says Mike Kinzel, an assistant professor in ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering who is the projectβs principal investigator.
βHowever, these droplets collide to form larger droplets that just fall out of the air,β he says. βThatβs kind of the process weβre trying to promote. We donβt want the droplets to blow around with the wind like a cloud, we want them to fall out of the sky like rain.β
A way to reduce transmission distance will be especially important as people return to work and school, where maintaining six feet of social distance may be difficult, says Kareem Ahmed, an assistant professor in the department and co-principal investigator.
βThe six feet is great as a general guide, but then in a confined environment like our offices, grocery stores, public transit or hospitals, these droplets are going to interact with surfaces, HVAC systems or ventilations,β Ahmed says.
βSo if we change the properties from the source, which is essentially our respiratory functions, whether it’s coughing, sneezing, speaking or breathing, then you’re simply going to reduce the amount that you’re producing, and hopefully bring the six feet to something shorter, where we can interact more,β Ahmed says.
βBased on our early data, coupling a face mask with saliva mixed with corn starch will potentially have us go from six feet to two feet for social distancing,β he says.
Leading the analyses of the effort are postdoctoral researchers Douglas Hector Fontes in Kinzelβs lab and Jonathan Reyes in Ahmedβs lab.
Fontes is running numerical simulations to study how differences in viscosity, density and surface tension impact droplet dispersal.
βOur preliminary results have shown a significant reduction in the duration of droplet suspension in the air by changing the properties of the saliva,β Fontes says.
Reyes is using high-speed cameras to characterize the patterns and distance traveled of droplets emitted from sneezing and coughing, including those that have been altered by candy or starch. Heβs finding similar reductions.
βOur data have shown that altering the physical properties of the saliva shows great promise in reducing the exposure of a sneeze,β Reyes says. βParticulates travel shorter distances and fall faster.β
As part of the research, Reyes is also supplying the sneezing.
βIf you know anyone who can sneeze on command, send them my way,β Reyes says.
The team is working closely with Jelena Catania, a doctor and expert in infectious diseases atΒ ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs College of Medicine and the Orlando Veteranβs Administration Medical Center, for theΒ implementation challenges, and Brent Craven, a researcher at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for the potential implementation.
Kinzel received his doctorate in aerospace engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and joined ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ in 2018. In addition to being a member of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Department of Mechanical and Aerospace engineering, a part of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs College of Engineering and Computer Science, he also works with ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research.
Ahmed earned his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He worked at Pratt & Whitney Military Engines andΒ Old Dominion University prior to joining ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2015. He is the director of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Propulsion and Energy Research Laboratory, a faculty member of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research, an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellow, and a member of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Renewable Energy and Chemical Transformation Cluster.
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