Breath aerosol management and collection system
First Claim
1. Aerosol collector apparatus for collecting aerosol from exhaled breath of a test subject, comprising:
- an aerosol collection chamber with a collection surface charged with an electrostatic voltage for collecting aerosol particles from exhaled breath, wherein the aerosol particles are ionized after being exhaled;
a conduit for channeling the exhaled breath from the test subject to the aerosol collection chamber;
an ionizer system in the conduit for ionizing the aerosol particles in the exhaled breath,an extractor system to remove the aerosol particles from the collection surface for analysis; and
a pre-collection filter, wherein the pre-collection filter is an ionizing filter connected in fluid-flow relation to the conduit, and the pre-collection filter is positioned in close enough proximity to the aerosol collection chamber to filter ambient aerosols and prevent ambient aerosols from being inhaled by the test subject.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
Aerosol collectors 10, 120 include pre-collection filters 100, 126, aerosol collection chambers 30, 130, and other exhaled breath conditioning and control features for providing not only accurate and efficient, but also reliable and reproducible aerosol collections that can be used in standardizations and can be compared in meaningful ways to other exhaled breath aerosol collections from the same test subject and from different test subjects. The aerosol collector 10 example includes electrostatic collection components 34, 40, and the aerosol collector 120 includes nucleating condensation components 168, 172 and vortex collection components 132, 138. Both include analyte extraction apparatus 50, 124.
90 Citations
32 Claims
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1. Aerosol collector apparatus for collecting aerosol from exhaled breath of a test subject, comprising:
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an aerosol collection chamber with a collection surface charged with an electrostatic voltage for collecting aerosol particles from exhaled breath, wherein the aerosol particles are ionized after being exhaled; a conduit for channeling the exhaled breath from the test subject to the aerosol collection chamber; an ionizer system in the conduit for ionizing the aerosol particles in the exhaled breath, an extractor system to remove the aerosol particles from the collection surface for analysis; and a pre-collection filter, wherein the pre-collection filter is an ionizing filter connected in fluid-flow relation to the conduit, and the pre-collection filter is positioned in close enough proximity to the aerosol collection chamber to filter ambient aerosols and prevent ambient aerosols from being inhaled by the test subject. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. Aerosol collector apparatus for collecting aerosol from exhaled breath of a test subject, comprising:
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an aerosol collection chamber in fluid-flow relation to a vortex generator for collecting aerosol particles from exhaled breath, wherein the aerosol particles are subject to nucleation condensation after being exhaled; a conduit for channeling the exhaled breath from the test subject to the aerosol collection chamber; an extractor system to remove the aerosol particles from the collection surface for analysis; and a pre-collection filter, wherein the pre-collection filter is an ionizing filter connected in fluid-flow relation to the collection chamber, and wherein the pre-collection filter is positioned in close enough proximity to the aerosol collection chamber to filter ambient aerosols and prevent them from being inhaled by the test subject. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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29. Aerosol collector apparatus for collecting aerosol from exhaled breath of a test subject, comprising:
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an aerosol collection chamber with a collection surface for collecting aerosol particles from exhaled breath, wherein the exhaled aerosol particles are subjected to an electrostatic, centrifugal, thermophoretic, magnetic, gravitational, inertia or aerodynamic force to capture substantially all aerosol materials as small as 10 nanometers in mean equivalent diameter for analysis; a conduit for channeling the exhaled breath from the test subject to the aerosol collection chamber; an extractor system to remove the aerosol particles from the collection surface for analysis; a pre-collection filter positioned in close enough proximity to the aerosol collection chamber to filter ambient aerosols and prevent ambient aerosols from being inhaled by the test subject, and at least one flow meter positioned to measure flow rate of the exhaled breath through the collection chamber wherein a control means utilizes the flow rate measurements of the exhaled breath to partially open or partially close operable valves to control flow rate of exhaled breath. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32)
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Specification