December 2016

Worker checking air quality inside workplace

Air Quality Index (AQI) & your choice of filter

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The AQI index is a measure of daily air quality. It determines how polluted or clean the air is, and what health impacts it may bring. The AQI pays attention to health effects experienced within few hours to few days after inhaling polluted air. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) measures AQI for five mainstream air pollutants as regulated by Clean Air Act, and these are:

1. ground-level ozone

2.particle pollution (also called particulate matter)

3. carbon monoxide

4. sulfur dioxide

5. nitrogen dioxide

Each pollutant has been allotted established national air quality standards by EPA to protect health on a national level. The first two air pollutants mentioned above, are termed as the most dangerous for human health.

AQI – The functioning

Higher AQI levels imply higher level of air pollution, and thus greater health concerns. For instance, AQI value of 50 shows fine air quality with negligible potential to impact public health, while value of 300 and above shows hazardous air quality. An AQI value of 100 usually coincides with national air quality standard for pollutants which has been set by EPA. The value below 100 are termed as satisfactory, while above ones show unhealthy air quality, firstly for sensitive people groups, and then for everyone, as the value increases.

Understanding the AQI

AQI keeps you informed regarding what local air quality is there and how it affects health. To make it easily understandable, AQI has been divided into six classes. EPA has assigned a certain color to each class for understanding pollution level.

Air Quality Index Pollution and Visibility Chart

IAQ & Air Filters

Since higher IAQ index means higher pollutant level, you would want the air filters having high efficiency to remove pollutants from the air and give as low IAQ index reading as possible. In this regard, high efficiency air filters include HEPA filters, which have also been recognized by EPA as the best product for having airborne particles free environment and low IAQ index reading. HEPA filters are able to filter the air at a very fine degree, blocking particulates that are 0.3 microns or bigger. HEPA filters can easily catch 99.97 percent of airborne pollutants, leading to low and well maintained IAQ index and lesser health concerns.

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inside of chicken farm

Poultry House Air Filters & Filtration

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With rising concerns regarding avian influenza, many poultry producers are now thinking of the ways to filter the air in their poultry houses. However, getting clean air into these farms can be very costly and difficult. Nevertheless, with the complexity of and highly crowded poultry houses, with dust and air borne particles, air filtration has become critically important and a never ending concern for the poultry house owners and producers.

There are the poultry facilities where specially designed filtration systems have been installed in order to prevent external pathogens from entering the space. These completely-closed, filtered-air, positive pressure (FAPP) houses are usually used for carrying out disease research and producing eggs for the vaccine development where it is vital that fresh air entering inside is pathogen free. In a FAPP poultry house, external air is drawn through very powerful fans of high efficiency HEPA filters, capable to remove 99.97 % of the airborne particles with size 0.3 micrometers or larger. The air is pushed into the poultry house then and distributed by using a duct system. The exhaust outlets present in the house are comparatively small, which makes a very high positive pressure inside the house.

It is significant to consider that because HEPA filters are developed to eliminate very tiny particles, they can be quite restrictive to the air flow. As a consequence, the blower fans in a FAPP house utilize substantially higher power per CFM moved than that used in the typical poultry house. It should be kept in mind that all prevention efforts must first focus on proper farm biosecurity measures and practices. Quite simply, it is equipment, people, rodents, and wild birds etc, which are most likely the transmitters of particles. Another critical aspect of the poultry farm is that they are surrounded by fences to keep foreign transmitters of bacteria or germs, such as vehicles at a safe distance. Extreme caution must be taken while installing the filtration system on a poultry house.

The typical ventilation often times won’t be compatible. Heavy-duty ventilation systems are developed to manage the force needed to pull air through the kind of filter material required to eliminate the particles sizes that are of major concern. Air exchanges may be greatly decreased by filter material installation over air inlet openings. Overall, Proper air filtration in a poultry house is quite difficult and costly. Though filtering incoming air might prove a sound investment on certain farms having extremely precious birds (i.e. primary breeding stock), but for most of the producers, efforts should also be first focused around sound biosecurity practices.

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data center room

Data Center Air Filtration Solutions

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High Quality Air Filtration to Combat Pollution & Contamination

Due to the increase of pollution in many parts of the world, urban data centers have been facing increasing mechanical failures. The major underlying cause is poor air quality that essentially needs a high quality air filtration system.

Industrialized regions like New York, Tokyo, Beijing and Los Angeles are the biggest victims of air pollution, which is caused by their industrial manufacturing, traffic congestion and refineries. All these cities have deployed giant data centers having networked computers storing business’s IT systems, machines and equipments. Due to rising air pollution, data centers are having poor air quality, resulting in negative impacts on operations in many ways.

The Corrosive Impact of Contaminant’s

To adequately retain the efficiency of data centers a cooling temperature of 70–75 °F (21–24 °C) should be maintained in order to reduce exposure to contaminants. Corrosion in electronic components is one of the biggest risks to data center functionality.

Contaminants entering the systems through ventilation systems and doorways while people move in and out of the premises are the main cause of corrosion. Among various harmful gases that cause corrosion, the major ones include sulfur dioxide, particulate mate (PM) and hydrogen sulfide. In busy cities like Beijing the emission from cars exhaust, coal power plants and fires usually generate particulate matter, forming a thick haze that pollutes the city.

These contaminants also affect computer circuitry and metal, as well as electricity, follow and eventually result in burn out or blackouts of components, since electricity starts to flow via wrong channel. In addition, air pollution also increases salt concentration in the air, which is the major generator of corrosion. Hence, poor air quality accelerates deterioration rate of electronic components.

How is Air filtration the solution?

If your company has a data center, it is imperative to minimize the impact of poor indoor quality which can be done with the help of a high quality air filtration system.

Filtration systems able to monitor real time are usually the best since they assure optimal functioning of air filtration devices. Proper air filters clean the air entering the data centers and also pressurize it to stop external contaminants from entering the equipment.

EFS Offers High Quality Air Filters

Being a leader in the industry for many years, Engineered Filtration Systems high quality air filters meet the needs of large data centers. EFS understands the challenges of data centers operating in industrialized cities, that’s why, EFS is dedicated to providing highly advanced air filters that produce superior results with low operating cost.

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Interior view of swine farm

Air Filtration for Swine/Pig/Hog Farms

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Different filters are recommended for a specific farm based on it’s operations. HEPA filters are often recommended due to their 99.97%+ efficiency and ability to catch up to 0.3 micron particle size. The efficiency percentage increases for larger particles and decreases for smaller particles, but as the particle size becomes extremely small, the efficiency actually increases again. 

 As the filter becomes ‘used’, it becomes more efficient, because trapped particles help to filter an even higher percentage of small particles.  Filtration is carried out by three basic means:

 1.Impaction: Bigger particles cannot avoid filter fibers. They enter directly. This is the way these bigger particles (>0.4 um) are trapped in the filter. 

2.Interception: Smaller particles enter within 1 radium of fiber and stick to it. These particles (<0.4µm) are stick there via van der Walls forces. 

3.Diffusion: Brownian motion (turbulence) amplifies the possibility that small particles can be stopped by impaction or interception. 

 Filter Options

 Many manufacturers are concerned with low cost filters. All filters are not equal and present rating systems are not essentially applicable to farming operations. Frame integrity, materials quality etc is more importance to ensure no air bypass. Partial filtration will remain in the market because of cost efficiency. 

 High Temperatures

 By using PRRS virus survivability curve, it might be possible to stop filtration at a certain summer temperature while just taking on least risk of aerosol introduction of the virus. For managing huge air volume through a cool cell in summer ventilation, a filter bank should be nearly 3 times the size of cool cell pad. However, all of this can be very costly. Another application is in farms where the air comes via ceiling inlets year-round. An additional row of inlets might be put in at a quite minimal cost. 

 Challenges 

•How can everything be sealed up? Since the system is based on negative pressure, there is always an issue of minimizing air entrance into the building through the filter. 

•Summer filtration. To fulfill the ventilation requirements of a non-air conditioned barn, about three times the number of filters in the summer is required as in the winter. 

•All doors must be secured. 

•Back-drafting via inactive fans is a problem as fan louvers might stick open and do not give a good seal when closed. 

HEPA filters offered by EFS are passing through real transformation in terms of efficiency and advancement, since it is the requirement for increasing farming operations. High quality air filtration systems are proving to be great contributors towards minimizing virus’ and creating a cleaner environment.

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