Overview

The purpose of this air quality assessment is to validate the performance of a needlepoint based air purification system in reducing the outside air intake for this building.

The more commonly used Ventilation Rate Procedure (VRP) from ASHRAE’s (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers) Standard 62.1 requires 10 CFM per person and 0.12 CFM per square foot for classrooms and similar school related spaces. This results in approximately 13-15 CFM per person.

Outside air is used to dilute the pollutants in the building to an acceptable level as defined by ASHRAE. Using ASHRAE’s alternative method called the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Procedure, the outside air intake was reduced to 5 CFM per person. Air quality readings are then needed to be taken to prove that the pollutants were reduced to a level equal to or lower than that achieved through dilution only.

The second purpose of this air quality evaluation was to assess the overall building’s air quality by measuring various IAQ parameters and the impact of using a bipolar ionization/plasma air purification technology installed in the building’s air handling units.

Testing

On May 8th and 9th, Michael Barford of MBA Technologies, Inc performed testing at the above referenced installation. MBA, Inc. collected direct air samples with the air purification equipment activated for the following selected attributes:

• Temperature
• Humidity
• CO2
• Ammonia
• Ozone
• Respirable Particulates