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Bipolar ionisation tested against viruses in air and on surfaces.

Bipolar Ionisation on test in Madrid.

Bipolar Ionisation on test in Madrid.

BIPOLAR IONISATION PUT TO THE TEST

Bipolar ionisation gained a lot of attention at this time because of its’ ability to remove pathogens from surfaces as well as the air. Early on in the pandemic, the main concern was around fomite (surface) transmission.

The ability of the technology to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) had been known for a long time.

Bipolar ionisation uses the process of agglomeration to reduce the level of ultrafine particles lingering in the air. The process is not selective, it will not differentiate between viral droplets or dust, it is effective on both.

The Madrid testing showed a 99% reduction of the viral surrogate in the air, and a ~80% reduction on surfaces. Please get in touch for a full copy of the test report.

INDUSTRY ACCEPTANCE

  • CIBSE  released guidance on air cleaning technologies in 2021
  • The technology is also included in the British Council for offices guidance (BCO). They suggest that ions are created as close as possible to the occupied space.
  • AirRated give credit to NBPI for reducing levels of particulates and VOCs.

IN-HOUSE EXPERTISE

Spire Building Services have supplied thousands of Bipolar ionisation systems to the UK market since 2018. Knowing how to implement the technology correctly is critical to ensure its effectiveness.

The founder of Spire Building Services was asked to report on successful application of bipolar ionisation for the CIBSE Journal. The article about the bipolar ionisation testing in Madrid was featured in the CIBSE Journal early on in the pandemic in October 2020.

He also spoke at the CIBSE Technical symposium about clean air technology application in late 2020 and at CIBSE Build2Perform event in 2021. He will next be appearing at the technical symposium in April 2022 to talk about real-life testing of IAQ improvement solutions and again at CIBSE Build2Perform in November 2022.

We sell the systems primarily through OEM manufacturers who include them in response to  specifications from building services engineers.

If you are an MEP engineer who would like assistance with specifying bipolar ionisation systems, please get in touch.

If you are a manufacturer looking to incorporate the technology into your systems, we would be delighted to assist you.

Read more about the Plasma Air systems or view our product range here.

Adam Taylor CIBSE Journal

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Breezometer Interview – April 2020

The COVID-19 outbreak continues to impact our day-to-day lives and with it has come a new normal, indoor living on a global scale. We stay inside to hinder the spread and keep our loved ones safe, but as we turn our focus on our indoor living spaces, interesting questions are being raised with regards to keeping our air clean to breathe while indoors. But what do the indoor air specialists think?

We sat down with IAQ specialist, Adam Taylor to understand the importance of protecting our indoor spaces in the face of virus spread.

What is your professional background and how did you get into the indoor air quality industry? Do you have a personal mission within space?

I’ve always worked in the HVAC industry, initially as a heating system design engineer before moving into air distribution and thermal comfort systems.
The link between indoor environment quality and people’s performance interested me, so I moved to Breathing Buildings in 2016 to promote the incoming BB101 regulation which covered “Ventilation, thermal comfort and indoor air quality”. My mission is to optimise ventilation systems for TOTAL air quality. Striking a balance between energy use and good air quality is a massive challenge, as the two are at odds with each other. This is an essential area for HVAC engineers to focus on to ensure the UK reaches Net Zero by 2050.

You mentioned that you are most experienced with the CO2 and thermal comfort aspects of the indoor air quality arena, can you explain?
Are there other areas within the industry that you consult on or are passionate about?

BB101 used CO2 as the overriding measure of air quality. I use the phrase “Total Air Quality” a lot. I think people often assume that if the air in a room has a low CO2 level, that it is “fresh”, this is often not the case.
BB101 utilised “adaptive thermal comfort” principles, these allow the temperature of a building to rise above what would normally be considered comfortable if the external temperature has been warm for some time. It is deemed to be acceptable, because people get used to the elevated temperature and they also dress appropriately.
I’d really like adaptive thermal comfort to be applied to wintertime scenarios. It is utter madness to be burning fossil fuels to heat a building up to 24 degrees at 9AM in the morning, when the users have just been walking in -5 air outdoors. People should dress appropriately for the conditions, and buildings should be temperature conditioned appropriately for the season. As my mother used to say, “put a jumper on!”

Working with the team at Novaerus taught me that there is no single solution to providing good indoor air quality (although some marketing teams may disagree). Firstly, you must make people aware that good air quality is important. This is best achieved through legislation and standards. I promote adoption of the AirRated standard, it gives the opportunity for landlords to assess the quality of their indoor environment and to achieve an “AirScore”. The AirScore demonstrates to tenants and employees that they have taken steps to provide a healthy indoor environment. In addition to promotion of the standard, I review HVAC designs for customers looking for their building to achieve a certain AirScore via AirScore D&O which is completed pre-Construction.
The team I work with at IEQ provide turnkey solutions for improving indoor environmental quality, I handle the Indoor Air quality side of the business. We work with a number of commercial partners in the UK and abroad to provide the most appropriate remediation works to clients.

Can you give your opinion to the state of regulations in terms of keeping people safe indoors, and where this is heading in the future?

We are at a real turning point when it comes to regulations on indoor air quality. The WELL standard led the way back in 2014, drawing attention to the link between indoor air quality and people’s health. However, the high cost of achieving a WELL certification means it has had limited uptake (less than 300 certified projects at time of of writing). At the other end of the scale, in the UK, the proposed Part F regulations are looking to limit the ingress of particulate matter, Benzene, CO, SO2 and NO2 into ALL buildings.
As the general public become more aware of the importance of air quality for health, I see a demand for standards that are quicker to implement in both new and existing buildings, the rise of Fitwel since 2017 has demonstrated this.

What is your opinion on indoor preparedness for disease spread?

Sadly, there is very limited preparedness, just getting an average landlord to maintain the hygiene of their ventilation system is a challenge. Typically, we only see ventilation systems optimised to reduce the spread of airborne pathogens in acute healthcare facilities.

Which countries do you think are leading the world in the industry in terms of indoor air quality preparedness?

In South East Asia, there is a strong awareness of the effects of air quality on people’s health. Poor external air quality and people all living in close proximity keeps the issue in people’s minds and day to day use of face masks is high.
In South Korea, healthcare tourism is big business, so they have a desire to minimize the number of Healthcare acquired infections (HAI). This incentivises them to spend money on air purification systems, the increased awareness also boosts sales of domestic air purifiers.
Scandinavia stands out in Europe as a hotbed of IAQ innovation, Sweden is so confident in their preparedness, that they have not declared a Covid-19 lockdown, I hope that works out for them.

Where do you see the smart home in all of this?

The measures that get rolled out for buildings, do you think will they be implemented in residential homes or eventually become policy for all properties? I have to admit, I’m a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to adoption of smart devices and IoT. I think we need to move beyond IoT connectivity being a “nice to have” for consumers, with its adoption mainly driven by marketing teams. The extra complexity needs to be offset by benefits to health, material and energy use. When we genuinely make that link, building designers can alter their assumptions of building performance and user behaviors. Once we get there, we can optimise buildings to derive real value from IoT.

We recently received the following question when addressing proper indoor air quality preparedness, “Why are you guys not considering the cold plasma purification devices? No physical filtration needed, just plasma released in ambient air.” Can you explain how these devices work, how they are different from other filtration devices, and if you believe them to be a good defence?

Plasma, is the 4th state of matter, it is the most prevalent state in the universe. There are a variety of ways to employ it when looking to improve IAQ. Novaerus pass contaminated air directly through a plasma field giving incredibly high destruction rates for pathogens, virtually nothing survives the process. As you can imagine, this is ideal for high risk areas like hospitals.
It is impractical to cover large spaces with any kind of standalone pass-through air cleaners as THE Clean air delivery rate (CADR) from these types of system are too low to ensure a good air exchange. Integrating IAQ improvement systems into the HVAC system, is more appropriate for most types of building. The Bi-Polar Plasma generating systems release a stream of positiveLY and negatively charged ions into the building. Those ions then collide with room pollutants, including the ones being generated in the room. As the ions collide with particles in the air, they pass over their electrical charge so you end up with all the particles being attracted to each other causing them to form larger clusters, those clusters then fall out of the breathing zone.
The result is a reduction in particles normally missed by filters, (PM1 and PM2.5) as well as drops in TVOC concentration (due to oxidation), and a reduction in the aerial bioburden (mould spores, bacteria and viruses etc). If you have high levels of VOC, and ultrafine particulates, this is a cost effective way of dramatically improving the IAQ in whole buildings. Bi-Polar Ionisation is one of the solutions IEQ specify.

My concept of a perfect ventilation system incorporates particle filtration appropriate for the location, Catalytic filters for removing gaseous pollutants from vehicle emissions (typically BTEX, Nox and Sox), UVC for the cooling coil, a humidification system AND a Bi-Polar plasma generator.

An enhanced IAQ system is only as good as its maintenance. Scheduled ventilation maintenance is often overlooked, and IAQ suffers as a result.
Low cost air quality sensors will allow intelligent IAQ systems to automatically order consumables and maintenance according to patterns in the IAQ.
As hyper-local external air quality data becomes available, it will be possible for intelligent systems to predict when they will need a filter change, and whether they will need a pre-filter changed (in pollen season), a HEPA (during periods of high PM2.5) or catalyst filter (because of traffic fume exposure).

Do you think employers have an obligation to protect their employees?

Absolutely, I firmly believe that workers exposed to poor IAQ will BE taking action against employers in the same way they have done with asbestos exposure. The way the legal system is going, it will not be acceptable to claim obliviousness. Employers looking to escape litigation will need to demonstrate that they took steps to protect their workers. That will mean taking regular measurements of indoor air quality and keeping a permanent record of them. If the conditions are found to be outside of recommended safe limits, remedial action should be taken.

H&V News Article – July 2020 – Bi Polar Ionisation

Trying to save energy by demand controlling ventilation rates purely on CO2 concentration is not an appropriate solution for much of the built environment.

Providing good IAQ by ventilating buildings with large quantities of outdoor air results in significant energy being used. In addition, the quality of outdoor air is decreasing to the point where it can seldom be called “fresh”.

ASHRAE defines acceptable Indoor Air Quality as “Air in which there are no known contaminants at harmful concentrations as determined by cognizant authorities and with which a substantial majority (80% or more) of the people exposed do not express dissatisfaction”

CO2 is not dangerous until levels exceed 30,000ppm, and yet it is regarded as the primary indoor air contaminant by many in the HVAC industry because it is not widely understood that CO2 is primarily a proxy for acceptable indoor air quality.

During the 1979 oil crisis, ASHRAE developed the 62.1 standard. The standard defines two methods for determining the outdoor air rate required in order to provide acceptable indoor air quality.

Option one is the ventilation rate procedure (VRP), the second option is using air cleaning systems and the IAQ procedure. The ventilation rate procedure simply calculates the amount of outdoor air required to dilute the contaminants to acceptable levels. The IAQ procedure allows engineers to model the concentration of indoor pollutants once the air is cleaned by an air purification technology. If the calculations show that the level of contaminants of concern are lower when using the IAQ procedure than when modelled with the VRP, then the lower outdoor air flow rates from the IAQ procedure may be used.

Selection of lower outdoor air flow rates at design stage reduces plant size and the reduction in heating, cooling and dehumidification will result in significant energy savings.

If air cleaning is utilized as an alternative to outdoor during peak temperature spikes, it may be possible to design a passively cooled building when using the IAQ procedure, compared to having to utilize mechanical cooling when using the VRP.

Plasma, is the 4th state of matter, it is the most prevalent state in the universe. There are a variety of ways to employ it when looking to improve IAQ. For example, Novaerus pass contaminated air directly through a plasma field giving incredibly high destruction rates for pathogens, virtually nothing survives the process. As you can imagine, this is ideal for high risk areas like hospitals.

It is impractical to cover large spaces with any kind of standalone pass-through air cleaners as THE Clean air delivery rate (CADR) from these types of system are too low to ensure a good air exchange. Integrating IAQ improvement systems into the HVAC system, is more appropriate for most types of building. The Bi-Polar Plasma generating systems release a stream of positively and negatively charged ions into the building. Those ions then collide with room pollutants, including the ones being generated in the room.

As the ions collide with particles in the air, they pass over their electrical charge, so you end up with all the particles being attracted to each other causing them to form larger clusters, those clusters then fall out of the breathing zone. The result is a reduction in particles normally missed by filters, (PM1 and PM2.5) as well as drops in TVOC concentration (due to oxidation), and a reduction in the aerial bioburden (mould spores, bacteria and viruses etc). If you have high levels of VOC, and ultrafine particulates, this is a cost effective way of dramatically improving the IAQ in whole buildings.

One of the most debated aspects of COVID-19 is whether the virus is airborne or not.

According to the WHO, whether a virus is defined as airborne is related to the size of particles typically emitted by an infected person that contain the virus and therefore how long that sized particle is able to be suspended in the air for. Low humidity has been identifies as causing increased airborne transmission of Covid19, as large infection droplets (>5micron) quickly dry out in buildings to become infectious droplet nuclei (<5micron), these infectious droplet nuclei can cause airborne transmission of the virus.

Bi-Polar polar ionisation technology has been used for decades to remove ultrafine particles from the air. it is extremely popular in casinos where smoking is still allowed and therefore levels of particles below 5 micron are common. The efficacy of Bi-Polar Ionisation does not significantly vary according to the type of particle that needs removing from the air. This makes it a perfect technology for reducing particulates in large spaces.

Exposure of FM workers to the virus when changing filters has been highlighted as a concern. In a post SARS lab test on a carbon brush ioniser in 2004 it was demonstrated that given sufficient time and concentration it was possible for ions to deactivate virus in air filters, and to increase the efficacy of those filters. In re-circulating HVAC systems, it may not be possible to upgrade the filters, so BPI may be an option to improve the efficiency of the existing grade of filters.

In May this year, testing carried out by Tayra and backed by the Spanish Ministry of Defence Biological Laboratory in Spain demonstrated the effectiveness of Plasma Air’s Bi-Polar Ionization technology for the reduction of MS2 Bacteriophage, a surrogate for Covid-19.

The Plasma Air Bipolar ioniser unit was fitted to the fan coil unit supplying air to the test space. The bacteriophage MS2 was then nebulized into the test space. During the two distinct phases of the test, the supply air entering the test room was ionized using Plasma Air’s bipolar ionization system. In contrast, during the second phase, the supply air into the room was untreated. A reduction of approximately 2 log units of the Bacteriophage was obtained in the air that was ionized by the Plasma Air system. This corresponds to a 99% reduction after only 10 minutes of exposure to ionization.

The tests also utilised manikins to simulate ICU patients. The manikins were equipped with specialized filters to measure the amount of Bacteriophage that was being breathed in with and without air ionization. The levels of MS2 Bacteriophage and associated particle counts were measured using Electrical Low-Pressure Impactors, and swabs were taken from walls and surfaces for analysis. The level of airborne MS2 Bacteriophage was measured using the Spanish authorities calibrated equipment for detecting biothreats. Results from this test showed a reduction in the order of 0.70-0.85 log pfu/cm2 corresponding to nearly 80% reduction in surface MS2 Bacteriophage after 10 minutes between the test with and without ionization.

The results from the test suggest that instead of localised re-circulation systems increasing the airborne transmission of pathogens, they can be our allies if fitted with Bi-Polar Ionisation technology.

A £350M turnover FM Contractor in Kent were looking to improve the quality of the air in their head office way before Covid-19 was around. iAQ Consulting were commissioned to carry out an HVAC & air quality survey of the building. The top three floors of the building are heated and cooled by fan coil units and on the ground floor by ceiling cassettes. Natural ventilation is provided via opening windows. Unfortunately on the top 3 floors, the opening height of the windows at 950mm AFFL means that if they are used to provide ventilation, they immediately cause uncomfortable draughts. The air quality measurements showed peaks of CO2 of up to 2500ppm with high levels of VOC.

Poor indoor air quality has been highlighted as a risk factor for airborne covid19 transmission. Increasing ventilation rates to dilute viruses shed by occupants has been recommended by the likes of CIBSE, REHVA and ASHRAE. In some buildings this may be a simple strategy to implement and may work outside of peak heating and cooling periods. This building is an example of where an alternative strategy is appropriate, particularly outside of mid-season. Bi-Polar ionisers are being fitted to all the fan coils in the building to reduce odours, VOCs and particulates, and to give protection against Covid119.

To discuss these matters in further detail with one of our experts, or if you are looking to spec a particular project, please contact us.