Development and evaluation of a test standard for the effectiveness of air purifiers in reducing the viral load in indoor air

Status:

ongoing

Aims:

In order to be able to improve the prevention of work-related health hazards, a proposal for a standardised test procedure for the validation of air purifiers for indoor spaces should be available after completion of the research project. The test procedure should both verify the effectiveness of the applied procedure with regard to the reduction of the virus load in the indoor air in addition to other manufacturer specifications, and also take into account possible risks for people who are in the treated indoor spaces after or during the air purification (e.g. nitrogen oxides, photobiological safety).

Activities/Methods:

The project will be divided into four work packages with three milestones over a period of two years. The work packages include for the areas "test chamber", "test bioaerosol" and "measurement method" respectively an extensive literature research to cover recent developments, preliminary tests and the evaluation of different methods. Among other things, various possible air purification techniques, aerosolization procedures, test viruses, collection and detection methods are to be considered. The chamber tests will be carried out at the Department of Materials Analysis and Indoor Air Chemistry (MAIC) at the Fraunhofer WKI in Braunschweig. Laboratory work such as examination of the applicability of bioaerosol samplers and microbiological analysis will be performed in the microbiological laboratory of biosecurity level 2 at the Institute for Animal Hygiene, Animal Welfare and Farm Animal Behaviour of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation.

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