Indoor Air Quality: making inside as safe as outside

With mounting evidence that coronavirus is transmitted primarily through airborne particles in enclosed spaces, indoor air quality will surely be at the forefront of every parent’s mind as the kids head off to school during this winter.

Unions representing teachers and school leaders have written to the Education Secretary asking for “urgent action” to improve ventilation and install air purification units in classrooms to remove the virus. Meanwhile, a Government-backed trial of air purifiers and UV light is getting under way in Bradford to assess their efficacy in mitigating the transmission of coronavirus and other respiratory diseases in schools. However, results from this trial will not be known until at least the end of the year.

Given that scientific advisory groups NERVTAG and SAGE had both formally acknowledged aerosol transmission of the virus in indoor spaces back in July and October 2020 respectively, current action on indoor air quality in our schools would appear to be a case of too little, too late. Our future generation deserve better than this. To protect the health and wellbeing of children and avoid further disruption to their learning we need a concerted effort to improve the indoor air quality in our schools right now.

Satellite MPR has been working with Clenzair Ltd, a supplier of state-of-the-art air purification technology, to highlight some of these issues to education leaders and the broader FM & Building Services community.

Schools need to ensure they are using the appropriate technology for their indoor air quality strategies. Aside from the fact that results from the Government-backed trial of air purifiers will not be known for several months, Clenzair believes the trial is further flawed as it is only testing one type of technology; one that relies on pulling the virus across a room to a filter and a maintenance regime that can impact the environment.

According to Clenzair, this is a major mis-step by the education department and the research team when there is another more appropriate technology available. One that not only purifies the air that it pulls through it, but also treats the air so that if a child coughs or sneezes in the classroom the germs are instantly neutralised and broken down. Not only that, wherever those droplets from coughs or sneezes land, or whatever surface that child then touches, is also being constantly sanitised.

The technology is Needlepoint Bi-Polar Ionisation (NPBI) and is the only air purification product that can attack the virus at the point of transmission without pulling it across a room, unlike the standard HEPA filter.

You can read more on this issue in a comment column we secured for Clenzair Partner, Jani Moran, in Facilitate, the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management membership magazine.

Meanwhile, Broxbourne Council has struck a deal with Clenzair to install its active air purification systems at the town’s Laura Trott Leisure Centre and the John Warner Sports Centre. Clenzair’s Needlepoint Bipolar Ionisation (NPBI) air purification technology will be used in the gyms, fitness studios and cafés of both centres, as well as the Scrambles soft play at the John Warner Sports Centre.

Broxbourne Council is the first public-sector organisation in the UK to install the NPBI technology which is widely used in the United States, most notably to protect the President of the United States and his team in the White House and by Air Force One. It has also been installed in Google and Microsoft HQs. The council was looking for a solution that not only ensured the safest possible indoor environment for its leisure centre members, but would also dramatically cut down on the need for harmful chemicals used in cleaning regimes.

The NPBI system kills 99.9% of all airborne and surface bacteria and viruses, both in the air and on surfaces, creating a continuously, safe environment 24/7. As the systems installed at the Broxbourne leisure facilities can neutralise the virus at the point of transmission without having to pull it across a room to a filter or across a UV light, equipment in the gyms and studios will no longer need to rely on the traditional spray disinfecting of equipment.

Read more on this story in Fitness & Beauty HERE