januaryfebruary2021 - 22

HVAC & BUILDING CONTROLS
irradiation (UVGI) technologies
are being installed in air handling
equipment. "
Marsh said the Arora team has
explored and produced a whitepaper
on a number of the new technologies
to f ight COVID-19, including
bipol a r ion i z at ion , hyd rog en
peroxide disinfection technology and
ultraviolet (UV-C) light purification
systems.
" M a ny of t he se pat hog en mitigating systems can be applied to
new or existing HVAC systems in
order to improve indoor air quality
and promote health and safety for
passengers and airport staff, " he said.
An easy step for airports to take
with their systems is to increase the
airf low rates along with beefing up
filtration.
" Having the right amount of
outdoor air that your system can
handle and not using too much
energy will help dilute the space from
potential particles, " Conlan said. " For

the filters themselves, most buildings
you see are currently using MERV
8 filters. ASHRAE recommends a
MERV-13 if the systems will allow. "
" A MERV 13 filter at a one micron
particle size is twice as efficient at
capturing than a MERV-8 filter, but
there's studies out there that show that
if you have a half-inch gap in that
filter system, that it could halve the
performance of your filter system. So,
you could have a really well-installed
MERV 11 that is better than a poorlyinstalled MERV 13, " he continued.
Farley warned there is no quick
or one-size-fits-all solution to the
challenges COVID possesses and
changes need to take into account
the balancing act these systems must
maintain.
" If it sounds easy then it may not be
the right approach. Any change must
be carefully evaluated by industry
professionals to determine if the
proposed change results in a reduction
of overa l l system per for mance.

Increasing the filter MERV rating
may very well create reduced airf low
due to the increased static pressure of
the filters, " Farley said.
" I think as we move forward, it's
to try and help provide the guidance
on that balancing act of safety versus
energy consumption, because some
of the mitigation strategies appear
to increase the energy use, " Conlan
added.
The first step to any change is
an evaluation of the current HVAC
system.
" When considering a change to
their HVAC systems, we recommend
that airports, after performing a
comprehensive analysis of their
existing systems, determine what
modif ications they can make to
increase filtration, ventilation and
potentially introduce pathogenm it ig at ing tech nolog ies. Th is
assessment, along with an airport's
consideration of pathogen-mitigating
technologies such as electrostatic air

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