The first round of experiments is done!

We are excited to share that we are done with our first round of experiments! During summer, we were busy building the experimental set-up in the laboratory, and in September we started conducting the experiments. When preparing the experiments, we realized that it would be very helpful to have an extra student working on the project who would be able to spend more time in the lab. That is why we composed a description for a bachelor end project, and it was successful, because Romy decided to do her research at TeamVero! With help of all the team members we were able to carry out our smoke experiments over de course of September and by now our results are in.  

We have a monthly meeting with our problem owner dr. Hettie Janssens, who advises us on the work we are doing and also gives us valuable information about her work in the clinic. It is great to be able to make a link with the actual work in the clinic and stay in touch about the recent advances in the field. 

We are happy to share that we are able to capture aerosol leakage with our experimental set-up, and are therefore able to compare different types of masks. It would be great to share our results, as this is the right time to inform health care professionals on the influence of using masks and nebulizers on aerosol leakage into the environment.

Also, our experimental set-up gained some international attention because KU Leuven visited our lab. Prof. Bert Blocken of the department of the Built Environment is doing research into masks. You can see a sneak peak of what it looks like here. 

While preparing the second round of experiments, we are at the same time recruiting students to work with us on this project. Because the new academic year has started, some team members have less time to invest in Team VERO. That is why we dedicated some time and energy in finding new members to keep Team VERO going. Now we will investigate the influence of our set-up on the aerosols that are generated by nebulizers. Stay tuned!