NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF PYRETHRIN AEROSOL DEPOSITION

Aerosol insecticides (e.g., pyrethrin) are widely used for the control of stored products insects inside food facilities. To optimize pyrethrin aerosol application, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to predict airflow and aerosol transport inside a vertical flow aerosol exposure chamber operated under laminar flow conditions. A discrete phase model in ANSYS FLUENT 2021 R1 was developed, and simulations were conducted to track pyrethrin droplets of various diameters (0.1 to 20 µm) and determine their deposition onto Petri dishes located near the center of the chamber. The deposition efficiency of the different aerosol droplet sizes and the effect of two flow rates (5 × 10^-4 m³ s^-1 and 4 × 10^-4 m³ s^-1) on deposition efficiency were determined. The results showed that the predicted deposition of pyrethrin aerosol increased with increasing droplet size, largely due to inertial and gravitational effects. Deposition efficiencies decreased with the higher flow rate—with 0.1% to 96.6% predicted deposition efficiencies for the low flow rate and 0.1% to 93.8% for the high flow rate. Results of this study can be used to improve aerosol application methods for stored product insect control.