Indoor Air Quality – A Rising Concern

Air is essential for life, and the quality of that air is critical for the well-being of living organisms on the planet. At any given moment, the air surrounding us and filling our lungs contain billions of particles too small to be seen through the naked eye, but powerful enough to impact our health, the operation of equipment and instruments, and manufacturing processes.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that the air indoors can be up to 100 times more polluted than the air outside. The leading cause of poor indoor air quality is a lack of proper air filtration, according to the American Medical Association. American Air Filter, the world leader in air filtration solutions, is bringing clean air to life through unmatched expertise and innovation.

Indoor Air Quality refers to the air quality within the buildings and structures and is related to health and comfort of building occupants. Understanding and controlling the common pollutants indoors can help reduce the risk of indoor health concerns. Proper air filtration and air cleaning are integral to improve IAQ.

Outdoor air used for ventilation in buildings and structures contains various contaminants. These are particulate matter (some are biological in origin), gases and vapours. The main source of these contaminants is either outdoors, indoors (building components, occupants and occupant activities), or both outdoors and indoors. A proper filtration selection is helpful in removing these contaminants from the air, outdoor or in recirculation.

In commercial facilities, controlling airborne pollutants is necessary to maintain a comfortable, healthy, and odour-free environment. These air pollutants are inversely related to occupant health so maintaining proper IAQ levels becomes a primary concern. Poor IAQ ranks as one of the top five environmental risks to occupant health. While most commercial facilities commonly use particulate filters in the air handling units, it is observed that most of the installations have single-stage washable filters in use. The lab test results prove that these filters are not efficient enough to address the challenge of particulate and gaseous contaminants.

Gaseous contaminants originate from a variety of sources, such as automotive exhaust and chemical off-gassing of new furnishings, paints, etc. Commercial facilities face a unique challenge in combating gases from various occupant activities, building operating equipment, and maintenance areas, as well as airborne particulate from renovations and construction. Depending on the concentration of gaseous contaminants a proper solution using carbon filters must be applied in the AHU to combat such challenges. Few of the other applications needing carbon filters are specific to requirements of odour control like gymnasiums, science classes, and cafeterias.

The world’s leading health-related organizations consider PM10, PM2.5, and PM1 fine dust fractions as the most important and dangerous for humans. Particles with an aerodynamic diameter of:

10-micron (ePM10) deposit in the nose and pharynx of the human respiratory system

5-micron (ePM2.5) are small enough to reach the human lung and deposit in the bronchia

1micron (ePM1) or smaller are small enough to find their way through the cell membranes of the alveoli into the human bloodstream and cause life-threatening diseases.