UC Berkeley

It is well documented that clothing serves as a reservoir of airborne particles, including bioaerosols. However, little is known about the role of clothing in transporting potentially harmful particles from one location to another that contribute to inhalation exposures. Here we utilize a well-controlled chamber to quantify the size-dependent clothing release fraction (CRF) in the particle diameter range 0.5-10 µm as a function of four fabric motion intensities and three motion types. A programmable robot reproducibly manipulated a fabric that had been previously loaded with a known quantity of test dust. Our results show that 0.3-3% of deposited particles were subsequently released with fabric motion. The percentage of resuspended particles increased with the vigor of fabric movement and varied with motion type. Particle size substantially influenced the CRF, with larger particles exhibiting higher values. These findings could contribute to understanding how bioaerosols are transmitted and controlled.