LoginThe primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of different commercially available portable indoor air cleaning technologies in removing dust particulates from the indoor air. Suspended respirable particles are of great concern and often identified as important source of indoor air quality problems. The concentrations of particulate and gaseous pollutants encountered in the indoor environment frequently exceed those found outdoors by factor ranging from 2 to 20. Indoor particulates and some contaminants are found to cause or worsen respiratory ailments like asthma and allergies. Commercially available air cleaners with different sets of air filters were tested in a test chamber according to modified ANSI/AHAM AC-I 1988. The number of airborne particles within a set of fixed size ranges was measured with a laser light scattering instrument. The purpose of the study was to test how effectively different sets of filters remove the particulates from the air. The types of filters used were fibrous filters for coarse particles, electrostatic precipitators, electronic filters and HEPA tilter. Some devices have incorporated the use of activated charcoal to remove gaseous contaminants from the air but these contaminants were not evaluated in this study. It was seen that different air cleaners perform very different in terms of their efficiency. What determines the overall rate of removal or the space cleaning efficiency is the product of the air flow rate through the air cleaner and filter efficiency.
Effectiveness of portable air cleaners in particulate contaminant removal.
Year:
1997
Bibliographic info:
in: SITHOK-2 International Congress on heating and air conditioning of buildings, proceedings, edited by J Krope, P Novak, Slovenia, University of Maribor, proceedings of a conference held 11-12 May 1997, pp 74-83.