Efficient germicidal system against COVID-19 for AIRPLAN HVAC installations

The HVAC installations designed by AIRPLAN for the area of ​​Cleanrooms (Cleanrooms) mostly have air conditioning units in recirculation regime, with two levels of filtration (M5 (ePM10 50%) as pre-filtration and F9 (ePM1 80 %) as intermediate filtration The final diffusion of the air in the room is usually through a HEPA H14 terminal filter.

In the context of the health crisis caused by COVID 19, several leading organizations in the field of Air Conditioning, such as ASHRAE, in the United States and REHVA, in Europe, have published short guides where they express their position on paper that the air conditioning installations can play in the dissemination or neutralization of the virus in closed areas such as offices or clean rooms, in our case.

ASHRAE has expressed its vision through the document ¨ASHRAE Position Documento on Infection Aerosols of April 2020. In it, to communicate the level of scientific certainty of its recommendations, ASHRAE has taken as reference the classification system of the Agency for Healthcare and Quality (AHRQ).

This system includes 5 levels of evidence, from A (Strongly recommended; good evidence) to E (Insufficient or low-quality evidence to recommend).

The use of high-efficiency particle filters in centralized systems, as in our case (M5 + F9 + H14), reduces the area load of infectious particles and ASHRAE classifies its recommendation with a level of evidence A, the maximum. Therefore, the intrinsic design of our facilities following GMP criteria inherently carries a highly recommended measure.

At AIRPLAN we not only stay here, we have studied, among the measures available in the market, which would be valid to reinforce the role of filtration in the HVAC installations of Clean Rooms that our clients have.

Currently we are already applying a well-known solution, but not widely used in the cleanroom field, such as ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI), in other words, UV-C lamps. It is a highly researched and validated solution, ASHRAE also gives it a level of scientific evidence A.

The ultraviolet (UV) spectrum can inactivate microorganisms and within this, UV-C (wavelength between 200 and 280 nm) provides the greatest germicidal effect. Typical lamps have a wavelength of 254 nm, very close to the optimal 265 nm.

Additionally, we make sure that your integration is as easy as possible. Its incorporation has little or no impact on the thermal behavior of the installation and it is conceived as an easy-to-install kit.

The combined action of several measures is the best germicidal strategy for your HVAC systems.

We continue to search, analyze and contrast means of proven evidence that help to improve the quality of the air that is breathed in the conditioned spaces in all the HVAC facilities of our clients.

Contact the AIRPLAN team to learn more about combined germicidal solutions for your facilities.