Supporting data for "The rapid natural viral inactivation in an evaporating droplet"

Droplet infection transmission has again become one of the most heated topics due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2019. While the viability decay of infectious droplets due to environmental exposure has been studied for nearly a century, the mechanisms of viability decay in respiratory droplets is still unclear, and it lacks a model to evaluate short-range (i.e., conversational distance) droplet viability decay. Recent experimental setup, specifically the droplet levitation device, only allowed capturing droplets after 5 seconds of environmental exposure. Unfortunately, experiment showed the infectivity decay of a large droplet (>50 micrometers in diameter) occurred before 5 seconds, and a new setup was needed to investigate this rapid decay.In this study, we proposed a new setup to capture and analyze droplets after 0.1 to ~9 seconds from initial droplet generation. The droplet drying dynamic was simulated to explain the viability decay measured by the droplet experiment. The simulation results of the droplet composition throughout the evaporation process under various humidity levels are shown here.

由于2019年爆发的SARS-CoV-2疫情，液滴感染传播再次成为最热门的议题之一。尽管感染性液滴因环境暴露而导致的存活能力衰减问题已研究近百年，但呼吸液滴存活能力衰减的机制尚不明确，且缺乏用于评估短距离（即交谈距离）液滴存活能力衰减的模型。近期实验装置，特别是液滴悬浮装置，仅能在环境暴露5秒后捕获液滴。遗憾的是，实验结果显示，直径大于50微米的液滴感染性衰减发生在5秒之前，因此需要新的装置来研究这种快速的衰减。在本研究中，我们提出了一种新的装置，用以在液滴生成后0.1至~9秒的时间内捕获和分析液滴。通过模拟液滴干燥动态，解释了液滴实验中测得的存活能力衰减。在此展示了在不同湿度水平下，液滴组成在整个蒸发过程中的模拟结果。