Evaluating air treatment technology performance against infectious aerosols
Citation:
Ratliff, K., L. Oudejans, W. Calfee, J. Archer, R. Yaga, W. Schoppman, AND J. Gilberry. Evaluating air treatment technology performance against infectious aerosols. 2023 EPA International Decontamination Research and Development Conference, Charleston, SC, December 05 - 07, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
This presentation reviews ORD's testing capabilities for evaluating the efficacy of air treatment devices and provides an example of results from testing portable HEPA filtration units and Far UV lamps against bioaerosols in a large scale test chamber using different aerosolization media. It will be presented at the 2023 Decontamination Research and Development Conference.
Description:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Homeland Security Research Program has been conducting research to evaluate the efficacy of air cleaning and treatment technologies against infectious bioaerosols. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased interest in these technologies, which can reduce concentrations of airborne pathogens through either inactivation or particle capture, yet it remains difficult to predict the performance of emerging air cleaning technologies in applied settings. Using a large-scale bioaerosol test chamber, EPA has been conducting experiments to evaluate the efficacy of these technologies against the bacteriophage MS2, a surrogate for pathogenic viruses, under conditions that are more representative of real-world environments compared to how they are often tested. This presentation will provide an overview of studies conducted with both far-ultraviolet (far-UVC) emitting and high-efficiency particulate air filter (HEPA) devices and discuss how changes to test methodologies can significantly impact technology performance, either through calculating log10 reductions or the clean air delivery rate (CADR). These findings highlight the need for standardized test methods for air cleaning technologies in order to optimize their use as part of a layered mitigation strategy to reduce the risk of disease transmission in indoor settings.