Maintenance Of Indoor Air Quality Research Articles

Current approaches for preventing environment-associated contamination in healthcare facilities: a systematic literature review by open access database

This article presents a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) whose objective is to identify aspects related to the built environment of Emergency Rooms (ERs) and healthcare facilities that interfere with infection by respiratory diseases. The SLR presented is a relevant part of ongoing research dedicated to discussing the built environment’s role on contamination, considering the COVID-19 pandemic scenario and the ER of the University Hospital of the University of São Paulo (USP), sited in São Paulo city, Brazil, as a case study. The results of this SLR showed that the main aspects discussed in the selected articles are: Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems; disinfection and hygiene; layout and spatial organisation; air curtain and air purification; natural ventilation; door opening; and surface material. As major findings, the importance of properly designed mechanical ventilation systems and of the parameters’ control for the maintenance of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) are highlighted. In addition, the existence of isolation rooms; periodic assessments based on guides and protocols; self-sanitising materials surfaces; and environmental design strategies are presented, together with the development of technologies, often incorporated into hospital furniture. Thus, as contribution, the article highlights the importance of the association of several measures related to the performance of the built environment to minimise respiratory infections in healthcare environments. As a limit of this research, only open access articles and reviews from 2017 to 2021 were considered, so that the article reveals trends in this field of study, not covering the entirety of content.

Assessment of Indoor Bioaerosols in Public Spaces by Real-Time Measured Airborne Particles

ABSTRACTHumans spend a considerable amount of time indoors, and indoor biological airborne pollutants may harm human health. Active bioaerosol samplers and conventional microbiological culture methods, which are widely applied in studies of airborne microbial contamination, are not only unable to perform continuous monitoring over long periods, but are also time-consuming and expensive. In order to rapid assess indoor airborne microbial contamination, multiple linear regression models were constructed by statistically analyzing the measured bioaerosol samples and the real-time measured mass and number concentrations of airborne particles using a direct reading instrument from 43 air-conditioned public spaces. There were significant positive correlations of indoor airborne bacterial and fungal concentrations with indoor size-segregated particle mass and number concentrations. The predictive power of the model was sufficient for predicting indoor bacterial concentrations from the indoor and outdoor size-segregated particle number concentrations as independent variables. Particle number concentration outperforms particle mass concentration as an independent variable in predicting indoor bioaerosol concentrations. The prediction model for indoor bacterial bioaerosol levels constructed in this study could facilitate a rapid assessment of potential airborne bacterial contamination via the simple and feasible measurement of particle number concentration, thus helping to improve the management and maintenance of indoor air quality.

The possibilities of energy consumption reduction and a maintenance of indoor air quality in doctor's offices located in north-eastern Poland

The main problem observed in doctor's offices is a good air quality, especially after thermal modernization. The present research involved 15 rooms belonging to 6 different medical practices located in north-eastern Poland. The observed minimum air change rate in a room equalled 0.55 ACH with the flow of ventilation air amounting to 25.20m3/h, which according to standards provides a ventilation air stream sufficient for a single person. It has been proved that the temperature and humidity were conformed to the standards, whereas the CO2 concentration was close to the permissible upper limit or in some cases exceeded it.In all rooms energy consumption has been simulated for three air change rates: the real one and two recommended values: 1.5 and 3 ACH. The calculation results showed that thermal modernization could bring 18–53% energy reduction for heating without changing air quality. However in order to improve air quality it is recommended to increase air change rate in some offices so the achieved effect would be lower: only 19–28% energy consumption reduction in some tested offices or even the energy consumption would be 9–34% higher that actual in the others.The energy consumption could be reduced about 23–38% by using mechanical ventilation with recuperation.

통계분석을 이용한 아파트내 휘발성유기화합물의 환경인자 분석

The aim of this study is to understand the characteristics of volatile oranic compounds (VOCs) and provide information about the present Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) at residential apartments. All samples were collected in 60-min interval using the tenax absorption trap between May, 2011 and February, 2012. And the effects of environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and construction characteristics were analyzed in relation to the measured concentrations. The results of this study showed that the mean concentration of VOCs was lower than the Ministry of the Environment's standards for maintenance of indoor air quality. The correlation analysis showed that ethylbenzene and xylene (r=0.916, p<0.01), toluene and ehtylbenzene (r=0.810, p<0.01), toluene and xylene (r=0.803, p<0.01) and toluene and styrene (r=0.588, p<0.01) were significant. The result of regression analysis was found that the influenece factors associated with the concentration of VOCs were the age and location of the apartment, remodeling, the temperature and the season.