VIVAS
Spot Sampler for Biological Collection
What it does:
The VIVAS is designed for efficient, viable capture of virus, bacteria and other bio-aerosols into a water solution.
How it works:
VIVAS uses the water-condensation growth tube to gently enlarge submicrometer airborne particles to form micrometer-sized droplets that are gently deposited into liquid.
Evaluation:
Due to the condensational enlargement, collection efficiencies are above 90% for particles as small as 8 nm, and as large as 10µm.
Physical collection efficiency as a function of particle size.
In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Florida, a forerunner of the “VIVAS”, was tested with influenza virus, and found to be more than an order of magnitude more efficient than the BioSampler.
Infectionous virus recovered from the VIVAS, as compared to a BioSampler
[ from Lednicky, J., Pan, M., Loeb, J., Hsieh, H., Eiguren-Fernandez, A., Hering, S.,Fan, H. & Wu, C. Y. Highly efficient collection of infectious pandemic influenza H1N1 virus (2009) through laminar-flow water based condensation. Aerosol Science and Technology, 50(7), i-iv.(2016).]
