OBJECTIVES This study is a cross-sectional study to investigate the frequency of humidifier and humidifier disinfectant usage in the general population. METHODS A questionnaire was applied to 94 subjects (46 male, 48 female) from the general population of Gyeonggi Province. The questionnaire consisted of 3 scales (general characteristics, 5 items about humidifier usage, 5 items about humidifi...

The prevalence of viable thermophilic bacteria and actinomycetes and mesophilic fungi was examined in 145 samples from 110 domestic humidifiers. A total of 72 and 43% of furnace and console humidifier samples, respectively, contained viable thermophilic bacteria, whereas 60 and 72% of these samples produced mesophilic fungal growth. Thermophilic actinomycetes were recovered from seven humidifie...

BACKGROUND Nontuberculous mycobacteria are well known to be a cause of hot tub lung, however, to our knowledge, there exists no case report of humidifier lung induced by mycobacteria. CASE PRESENTATION A case of a nonimmunocompromised female patient with Mycobacterium gordonae-induced humidifier lung is described. She spontaneously recovered after discontinuing ultrasonic humidifier use. When...

UNLABELLED We conducted a comprehensive humidifier disinfectant exposure characterization for 374 subjects with lung disease who presumed their disease was related to humidifier disinfectant use (patient group) and for 303 of their family members (family group) for an ongoing epidemiological study. We visited the homes of the registered patients to investigate disinfectant use characteristics. ...

Maintaining proper membrane humidity is crucial to ensure optimal operation of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell system. A membrane humidifier using the fuel cell exhaust gas to humidify the dry air is studied in this paper. We first develop a thermodynamic model, which captures the crucial dynamic variables of the humidifier, including the pressure, flow rate, temperature, and relative ...

BACKGROUND During mechanical ventilation effective conditioning of inspired air is important. In this respect, conventional humidifiers do not perform optimally. By design, a counter-flow-type humidifier should improve humidification and heating, but may increase resistance. METHODS We investigated mechanical impedance and work of breathing (using pressure-flow characteristics and additional ...

OBJECTIVE The procedure for weaning from mechanical ventilation in many patients is a difficult and long process and increases the time of mechanical ventilation. There are numerous ways to achieve weaning. One common method is the use of CPAP. Considering the lower price of a humidifier, blender, and T-piece compared with CPAP and in light of the limited number of studies in this field, the cu...

An essential requirement for an operating PEM fuel cell is providing proper water content in the membrane. To avoid water flooding an appropriate water balance is required. Here, an analytic model of a planar membrane humidifier for PEM fuel cell is proposed where the effect of dimensional parameters includes membrane thickness, membrane area and channel hydraulic diameter are investigated. A N...

an essential requirement for an operating pem fuel cell is providing proper water content in the membrane. to avoid water flooding an appropriate water balance is required. here, an analytic model of a planar membrane humidifier for pem fuel cell is proposed where the effect of dimensional parameters includes membrane thickness, membrane area and channel hydraulic diameter are investigated. a n...

Phase angle shift between the current and voltage with frequency has been reported for a single phosphoric acid fuel cell in the cell temperature from 100 °C to 160 °C and the humidifier temperature from 40 °C to 90 °C. An electrochemical workbench is employed to find the shift. The figure of phase angle shift shows a peak in high humidifier temperatures. The peak in phase angle shift directs t...