Pollution Dispersion and Predicting Infection Risks in Mobile Public Toilets Based on Measurement and Simulation Data of Indoor Environment

Abstract

Since the 21st century, in several public health emergencies that have occurred across the world, the humid enclosed environment of the toilet has become one of the places where bacteria, viruses, and microorganisms breed and spread. Mobile public toilets, as a supplement of urban fixed public toilets, are also widely used in densely populated areas. According to statistics, since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019, multiple incidents of people being infected by the COVID-19 virus due to aerosol proliferation in public toilets have been confirmed. It is an urgent issue to resolve the internal environmental pollution of mobile public health and reduce the risk of virus transmission in public spaces under the global epidemic prevention. This paper utilized a typical combined mobile public toilet as the research object and measured and evaluated the indoor thermal environment in real time over a short period of time. The diffusion mode and concentration change law of pollutants in mobile public toilets were predicted and analyzed based on CFD. Regression analysis was also used to clarify the relationship between indoor thermal environment variables and aerosol diffusion paths, and a ventilation optimization scheme was proposed to reduce the risk of virus transmission.