Nanoparticle transport in a realistic model of the tracheobronchial region

The transport and deposition of nanoparticles in the human lung has important health consequences for both hazardous and non-hazardous reasons. Example scenarios are inhalation of toxic pollutants from the surrounding environment and novel targeted drug delivery to the lung epithelial surface. In this paper, we develop a method to simulate the time-dependent transport of nanoparticles in CT-based models of the human tracheobronchial region. We consider the transport in a seven generation model based on an Euler-Euler approach for particles ranging from 1.5 to 11 nm, i.e. in a range considered important for the tracheobronchial region. The results indicate that the deposition of smaller particles are affected more by the non-uniformity of the realistic geometry. In particular, we observe spatial variations in wall depositiondirectly resulting from the complex air flow patterns. Time-dependent effects tend to be less significant compared with the geometric effects.