Page 32 - Climate Control News August 2021

Indoor Air Quality
BELOW: Mater Hospital, Dublin
LEFT: A hospital room was filled with aerosol for 30 seconds, with the use of a smoke wand.
Purifiers effective with aerosols
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN (UCD) con- ducted a study in partnership with Camfil which found that air purifiers have a four-fold increase in the removal of aerosols in poorly ventilated spaces.
The study was conducted with the Mater Hos- pital in Dublin using Camfil air filtration solu- tions to find the effectiveness of air purifiers in cleaning unventilated spaces.
In a statement on COVID-19 the World Health Organisation (WHO) said: “The virus can spread from an infected person’s mouth or nose in small liquid particles when they cough, sneeze, speak, sing or breathe. These particles range from larger respiratory droplets to smaller aerosols.”
To understand how HEPA air filtration sys- tems can help reduce the spread, the team at UCD performed tests of Camfil City M air puri- fiers in the indoor environment. It found that Camfil's City M air purifiers remove aerosols from poorly ventilated rooms at four times the normal rate.
Experiments conducted by leading UCD re- searcher and lecturer, Dr. Kevin Nolan of the
School of Mechanical and Materials Engineer- ing, on the presence of aerosol in poorly ventilat- ed spaces, used Camfil’s City M air purifiers to rapidly clean a room of aerosol. For this experi- ment, a room at the Mater Misericordiae Univer- sity Hospital (MMUH) in Dublin measuring 4m x 2.5m x 2.6m was filled with aerosol for 30 sec- onds, with the use of a smoke wand.
“AEROSOL WAS MEASURED BY OBSERVING THE IMAGE INTENSITY OF LASER LIGHT.”
The presence of aerosol was measured by ob- serving the average image intensity of laser light scattered by the aerosol. These experiments found that when untreated, aerosol slowly dissi- pated over 500 seconds.
When the City M air purifier was at its maxi- mum speed, the aerosol was cleared in under 160
seconds. When a small heater was used to pro- vide added natural convection flow, the untreat- ed aerosol particles dissipated in an alarming 800 seconds, which was reduced to below 200 seconds with the use of Camfil City M.
In a statement Camfil said these findings are significant because on 30 April, 2021 the WHO declared that COVID-19 is transmitted mostly through the inhalation of airborne aerosols within close range.
“Camfil’s air purifiers can reduce the spread of COVID-19, while also tackling more long-stand- ing health problems. Air pollution is the single greatest environmental health risk in Europe. WHO estimates that 400,000 deaths in Europe and 1,080 in Ireland every year are attributable to poor air quality,” the statement said.
“The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified air pollution – particularly PM2.5 as a leading cause of cancer. High Efficien- cy Particulate Air (HEPA) filtration technologies are capable of greatly reducing the circulation of airborne particulate matter by over 99 per cent.”
Euromate Pure Air is working with Austral- ian businesses to create a safer and cleaner en- vironment for patrons and workers.
The company’s newest product the Pure Air Shield 3300 Air Cleaner, is created to fil- ter even larger commercial spaces and fil- ters suspended particles and aerosols from the air.
Other products include Dust Free Industrial Air Cleaner and HF Industrial Air Cleaner.
To find out more about the Euromate Pure Air product range visit: euromatepureair.com
Euromate’s new air filtration range is suitable for a wide range of applications from aged care facilities to industrial warehousing.
New air cleaning systems
EUROMATE PURE AIR is a new air filtration technology company from Europe that entered the Australian market during the Coronavirus pandemic.
The air cleaning systems offered by Euromate are produced in Europe and backed by independ- ent VTT Finland and TNO Netherlands certifica- tions, ensuring 99.9 per cent efficiency in filter- ing COVID-19 virus particles from the air.
Each system is designed to ensure five air changes an hour, where the volume of air in the room is completely filtered and replaced, in line with current recommendations.
Using an air filtration system is the optimal so- lution to removing pollutants such as viruses, bac- teria, dust and odours from indoor air.
This helps to reduce irritation and sickness in the workplace and protect the health of em- ployees and clients.
At the same time, removing dust and other
pollutants can extend the lifetime of your ma- chines and ventilation systems.
Euromate’s VisionAir Blue Line series is ideal for medical institutions, aged care facilities, schools, childcare centres, as well as offices and other retail spaces.
It utilises an innovative plug & play, mobile method that allows the system to be used ac- cording to business needs.
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