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Abstract
It is important to have well-defined, reproducible methods to evaluate and compare newly developed air filtration equipment. To facilitate accurate assessment of air purification devices at the bench scale, an experimental system was designed, built, and documented to evaluate particulate removal efficiency (PRE) of air filtration devices based on principles used in ASHRAE standards. The system was then carefully characterized and used to evaluate PRE and total energy consumption of a novel acoustically enhanced impaction (AEI) air purification device. The AEI device demonstrated 99.998% PRE of 0.5–1.5 μm diameter KCl particles while causing a 120 Pa pressure drop and requiring a total of 3.0 W/l of air treated at indoor ambient conditions. A single element of the AEI device operated in a biological safety level 2 facility was then used to evaluate PRE of bioaerosol consisting of Bacillus cereus (BC) spores. PRE of BC was 99.86 ± 0.05% at indoor ambient temperature and pressure. This research describes the use of the Bench-scale Air Purification Testing and Evaluation Chamber (BAP-TEC) to experimentally evaluate and compare PRE and total energy requirements of novel air purification devices at the bench scale (280–1400 alpm). Further, an AEI device containing a fibrous filter media and high intensity sound field in the same control volume is evaluated using the BAP-TEC. Temporally resolved PRE of a bioaerosol by the AEI is also presented.
Copyright 2013 American Association for Aerosol Research