Computational and experimental study on ion wind scheme based aerosol sampling for biomedical applications

In this paper, an efficient electrostatic particle sampling system is developed based on the neutralized ion wind. Compare with the conventional schemes where unipolar ion is used to charge the airborne sample and the sampling stage is fixed as a part of high voltage circuit, the new approach allows sampling stage to be electrically floated and adds insignificant charge to the bioaerosol, thus reduces damages to the microorganisms while provides design flexibility and good collecting efficiency. The approach is suitable for the combination with a microfluidic interface to develop complex aerosol-to-hydrosol bio-samplers.