Advances in Chemical Contaminants and Biological Droplets Dispersion into Indoor Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few months, we have been witnesses of an unprecedented pandemic outburst due to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The rapid spread of COVID-19 has had a major influence on our daily lives and habits, as well as the way we interact with each other. Many state governments have enforced nationwide street restrictions on public movement on their citizens in the hope of controlling and reducing the related risk of infection to the population, as well as the number of deaths. During a pandemic outburst, people usually spend most of their time into enclosed indoor building environments, increasing the cross-infection risk due to the space limitation and poor air ventilation. As a result, it is essential to investigate the characteristics and dispersion mechanisms of chemical and biological airborne particles among occupants into indoor building environments with the aim of controlling the spread of infectious disease. Despite the great improvements that have been achieved in the fields of microbiology, epidemiology, physics, and engineering, it still remains a challenge to fully understand the mechanisms of microorganism spread and dynamics of droplet formation among occupants under different characteristics and conditions of the building’s indoor environment, including the operation of HVAC systems.

This Special Issue invites high-quality scientific articles related to the current understanding of chemical contaminants and biological droplet dispersion into indoor environment, using advanced numerical (e.g., computational fluid dynamics) and experimental (e.g. flow and tracing gas) methods. Topics of interest for the Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:

• Human exhalation flow;
• Measurements of the concentration field in breathing zones and imaging visualization of expiratory flows;
• Quantitatively evaluated cross-infection risk;
• Aerosols and tracing gas techniques;
• Ventilation strategy and occupancy load;
• Exposure assessment;
• Airborne virus particles.

Dr. Christos D. Argyropoulos
Dr. Apostolos Michopoulos
Dr. Dikaia E. Saraga
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.