Novel thermal treatment model to decontaminate airborne SARS Cov‐2 virus for residential and commercial buildings

Abstract

In the COVID‐19 pandemic, control of airborne virus transmission is exceptionally challenging as it is attached to suspended particles in the air and stays for an extended time. Air contaminated with airborne viruses holds a substantial risk for household transmission. In this study, a novel thermal treatment system is modeled based on porous heating for the decontamination of airborne SARS‐Cov‐2. The model includes an air heating domain, insulated chamber, buffer tank and heat exchanger. The airborne SARS‐Cov‐2 is decontaminated when passing through a porous heat pipe and the insulated chamber for an anticipated dwelling period of more than 5 min at 105°C and further stored in a buffer tank for natural cooling. The obligatory decontaminated air is allowed in the residential space under ambient conditions passing through a heat exchanger. The numerical investigation of the porous pipe model at different L/D ratios with altered porosities aims to establish the best‐performing porous domain. Besides this, the buffer tank is intended to maintain buffer storage of the treated air and significant natural cooling before passing to the heat exchanger. A solar PV module is proposed to meet the prerequisite energy requirements of the equipped devices.