The proposed Annex should bring researchers and industry together to investigate the possible energy benefits by using gas phase air cleaners (partial substitute for ventilation) and establish procedures for improving indoor air quality or reduced amount of ventilation by gas phase air cleaning. The project shall also establish a test method for air cleaners that considers the influence on the perceived air quality and substances in the indoor air.


Main activities 

To accomplish the objectives, the Participants will carry out research and developments in the framework of the following four subtasks:

1. Energy benefits using gas phase air cleaning
2. How to partly substitute ventilation by air cleaning
3. Selection and testing standards for air cleaners
4. Performance modeling and long term field validation of gas phase air cleaning technologies 

Sub-activities

The activities performed in the subtasks and joint working group and their specific projects are:

Subtask A: Energy benefits using gas phase air cleaning

The subtask aims at quantifying the energy performance of using air cleaning as part of the ventilation requirements. The baseline for calculating the energy benefits are the energy used to heat/cool the required ventilation air and the electrical energy to drive the fans.

The task will be divided in the following three sub-tasks:

• A.1. Energy reduction by cleaning indoor air (recirculation, no outside air) compared to cleaning outside air in areas where the outside air is not good enough for ventilation
• A.2. Energy reduction by decreasing the amount of outside air by use of air cleaning
• A.3. Energy reduction by using air cleaning together with personalized ventilation systems. Could be work place by work place; but could also be an air cleaner serving several workplaces
• A.4.Minimum performance of air cleaners (effectiveness). Establish a metric of assessing air cleaner efficiency in relation to energy: CADR/kWh where CADR is the clean air delivery rate

Subtask B: How to partly substitute ventilation by air cleaning

This subtask will analyse how air cleaning can partly substitute for ventilation

The work of Subtask B will be structured into three project areas:

• B.1. Existing standards for IAQ-Ventilation
• B.2 Measure perceived IAQ for reducing people part
  • CO2 is not an indoor pollutant of concern in residential and commercial buildings. It is used as an indicator for the level of bio-effluent emissions from occupants. Therefore, air cleaning technologies to remove CO2 are not of interest and not included in this project.
• B.3 Measure pollution chemical (voc, formaldehyde etc) for reducing the building part
  • Other chemical pollutants will be taken from the WHO list of health criteria.

Subtask C: Selection and testing standards for air cleaners

The main criteria for establishing required ventilation rates are based on perceived air quality. Therefore, it is extremely important that an evaluation of the performance of air cleaners must include the measurement of perceived air quality.

This subtask focuses on the need for standard testing procedures for air cleaners.

The work in Subtask C will be structured into three project areas:

• C.1. Description of gas phase Air Cleaning Technologies
  • Sorption (charcoal, desiccant)
  • PCO-Photo Catalytic Oxidation
  • Ozone
  • UVGI-Ultra violet
  • Plasma
  • Electrostatic
  • ????
• C.2. Existing standards for testing gas phase air cleaning technologies
  • ISO TC 142 Testing of Gas Phase Air Cleaning decided in September to start a preliminary new work item to develop a standard for tasting of gas phase air cleaning technologies including using PAQ as a measure of performance
• C.3. Measurements of Perceived Air Quality (PAQ)
  • People-bio effluents as source
  • Individual substances (VOC, etc)
  • ISO TC146 SC6 Indoor Air Quality decided in September to establish a new AdHoc group to develop a standard for measuring PAQ in relation to testing gas phase air cleaning
• C.4. Measure chemical concentrations
  • Building materials i.e. VOCs as source
  • Other chemical pollutants will be taken from the WHO list of health criteria.
• C.5. Test space
  • Test room for generation of bio effluent and for measuring PAQ
  • Test channels for supplying and measuring individual substances

Subtask D: Performance modeling and longterm field validation of gas phase air cleaning technologies

The subtask would include the following activities:

• D1 Review of available models for predicting the performance of gas phase air cleaning technologies: identify knowledge gaps and trends, and select promising ones for D2
• D2 Advance existing models for selected gas phase air cleaning technologies to account for effects of realistic environmental conditions (T, RH, multi-pollutants) typical of field applications
• D3 Perform long term field experiments to validate the selected gas phase air cleaning technologies as well as the performance prediction models.