NEWS

Santrupti Continental in partnership with JEVEN from Finland brings new kitchen ventilation technology to India. The core of our kitchen exhaust solution is the Jeven Turbo Swing grease filter.

Turbo Swing ensures the efficient grease removal before air is extracted to the duct work. It utilizes the new, patented grease removal technology. Perforated separation plate removes the grease from the air while rotating and  “swings” grease to the sides of collection basin (see video). This technology is efficient to remove (>95%) particulates down to 5 microns. Smaller particulates can be removed by integrating the UV-light inside the Turbo Swing casing.

Turbo Swing grease filters can be installed inside the exhaust hood or directly into the ceiling surface. Total indoor air quality management is complemented with other Santrupti Continental solutions like Ambient Air Purifiers and AIRwala control and monitoring system.

 

Air quality problems have been in the daily news for last two years in India. But there have been very little information available how harmful it is and how people can protect themselves from the air pollution. Lack of knowledge have also been a challenge in our professional communities. This is why ISHRAE (Indian Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers) and the voluntary group of industry leaders have taken some actions to improve the awareness and to bring more knowledge for our professionals.

After release of ISHRAE Position Paper on Indoor Environmental Quality, the IEQ Committee has been working on to prepare the India-specific IEQ Standard. This standard is now on a review process and will be published soon. It is performance based standard and will give the target values for good thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting and acoustics.

Last week the Indoor Air Quality Assocition (IAQA) – India chapter was launched. The founding members are Richie Mittal (chair), Krishnan Viswanath (vice-chair), Dinesh Gupta (secretary), Ashu Gupta (membership), Barun Aggarwal (treasurer), Maija Virta, Nitin Deodhar, Gautham Baliga, PKSV Sagar, Subramaniam C and Shankar Rajasekaran.

The IAQA was established in 1995 in US and it is dedicated to bringing practitioners together to prevent and solve indoor environmental problems for the benefit of consumers and the public. In early 2015, the IAQA and the ASHRAE finalized a consolidation between the two organizations. The work of IAQA complements the work of ASHRAE in its standards, research, publications, and educational offerings. The two associations combine their resources to ensure the industry receives the best indoor air quality technical guidance and educational programs possible, which means improved indoor air quality.

IAQA offers wide range of learning opportunities like webinars and IAQA University online cources. You can join online the IAQA India chapter.

This video published by American Embassy School in Delhi shows that even in very polluted ambient environment the indoor air quality can be good. The basis of design was a comprehensive study of ventilation system performance and IAQ measurements carried out by Santrupti engineers in all buildings at the AES campus. Based on the study we found that:

• Room air particulate levels were too high:
  • Ambient air and Air Handling Unit filtration needed to be improved;
  • All buildings needed to be properly over-pressurized to avoid ambient air from entering indoors via doors and windows;
• Maintenance and operation of ventilation system needed to be improved:
  • HVAC-system components (including AHU rooms) needed to be maintained at a high standard;
  • Operation and maintenance personnel needed additional training to better manage the operation of ventilation and air conditioning system in each building.

We set the target together with school’s IAQ Quality Task Force to improve the indoor air quality: to reduce indoor air particulate matter PM2.5 level to be 70% below ambient air level, to remove traffic gas emissions from supply air and to improve the cooling in the classrooms.

This is the project we are really proud of in Santrupti engineers. There was no other project to copy, but we managed to develop a solution that utilizes the existing ventilation system. We added the Ambient Air Purifiers with the sufficient filtration (particulate & gas) and energy efficient EC fans to air intake. Thanks to DRI and Camfil-Farr to assisting us with the design and Breatheasy for implementing the installation.

Results speak for themselves – according the AES representative there is 85% – 98% reductions of ambient air particulate matter levels and indoor air quality is now always below the US EPA 24-h standard of 35 µg/m3 and in many spaces fall below the US EPA annual standard of 12 µg/m3.

by Aswanth, Santrupti engineers

Marathon day! A fine Sunday morning in New Delhi. About 30000 people participated in that big race. And then there were a few who wore pollution masks while running. People wearing pollution masks in a Marathon?

Let’s roll back the film.

Pollution and its effects in Athletics are one of those things which are untold in many parts of the world. Long time’s gone since Edwin Flack won the first ever 1500m ever in 1896 Olympics. The population of heavy haulers and cars weren’t that high as of now.  People lived their life peacefully breathing much better and unpolluted air those times. Since then Air quality is taking its toll on our dear athletes pretty bad.  Here are some of the notable incidents

• 1984, Los Angeles – British Steve Ovett collapsed following the 800m final with respiratory problems. He cited air pollution as a major contributing factor to his episode of exercise-induced asthma.
• The study shows that despite a high altitude and air pollution problems, Mexico City had no clear environmental policy in place for the 1968 Olympic games
• The characteristic smog of Los Angeles raised concerns about athletic performance at the Olympic Games of 1984, but there were limited efforts to tackle the ozone concentration during these games.
• 2008,Beijing Olympics-Air pollution was at least two to three times higher than levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization.

20xx Olympics, New Delhi 

Air Pollutants linked with Poor Health?

Research has highlighted a number of pollutants of concern for performance athletes and the general public. These include particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), Nitrogen and Sulphur oxides, the ammonium ion, organic aerosols, and ozone. PM2.5 which have a diameter of about a tenth of an adult human hair and smaller, and can be breathed deep into the lung. In urban areas these particles originate from sources including traffic and industry. In India the annual average of PM 2.5 is 153. Consider an young dreamer who wants to be an athlete, but ends up practicing in an environment which has dust particles 15 times the standard limit ? Well that’s something Indian Athletes should think about !

How do those Air Pollutants affect Athlete performance?

Potential health problems resulting from exposure to air pollutants during exercise include cardiovascular complaints, decreased performance, asthma, decreased lung function, and pulmonary hypertension. Athletes are especially susceptible to health effects from air pollution for four main reasons:

• During exercise an increased volume of air is inhaled in comparison to periods of rest.
• In response to this exertion, more air is inhaled through the mouth than when at rest. The mouth lacks the filter systems of the nose which remove pollution before it can reach the lungs.
• The increased air flow during exercise means that pollutants travel deeper into the lung.
• The fraction of particulate matter that is deposited during exercise (i.e. during increased tidal volume) is higher than during periods of rest (i.e. lower tidal volume).

The key problem lies where athletes generally breathe 10 to 20 times as much air and thus pollutants. In every breath of theirs, there’s a lot of particulates going inside and getting deposited in their lungs. This is something definitely not advisable as it reduces the lung capacity of our fellow athletes. There could be a possibility that these pollution levels are impacting the Indian athletes and costing them dearly.

Delhi’s pollution was brought to light during the Commonwealth Games in 2010. Athletes from various countries felt the effects of pollution during the Commonwealth games.They found it difficult to hit the top gear due to the high concentration of particles in Delhi’s air. Even Indian Marathon champion Sunita Godhra pointed out “Delhi particulate matter’s concentration   can affect athletes as our centers for Commonwealth Games — Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and National Stadium — are near to the major roads,”.

India definitely needs a contingent plan to clean this air. The benefits of having a better air quality has to be taught right from schools, colleges etc.

• Government should encourage the usage of green vehicles. Indian market should promote electric cars which are energy efficient and pollution free.
• They should also encourage people to use the bicycles for travelling shorter distances. The usage of bicycles not only reduces the air pollution also benefits the health of the people.
• They should focus on improving the public transport infrastructure. Improved and better connected transport infrastructure can potentially reduce the usage of car which in turn can reduce pollution.

The advantage of having a better air quality doesn’t only benefit our Athletes also the public masses too. It is high time Indian government starts addressing this issue seriously.

by Maija, Santrupti engineers

This is the question that you see people asking daily in social media. It is difficult to give any list of “good room air purifiers” as there is no official room air purifier testing standards or third party verification schemes available yet. This is why real independent data for comparison is missing. But here are some thoughts related to the topic which may help you to compare different products and solutions.

I will start with some background information and later I give few tips to select an air purifier in India. First concern of course is that do I need an air purifier and will I lose my immunity when using it? Different air pollution impacts our body differently. Humans have a relatively good immunity against microbiological contamination that refers to the infectious or allergenic substances like bacteria, yeast, mould, fungi, virus and pollen or their toxins and by-products. But we have no “immunity” against particulate matter that we breathe in. Ultra-fine particulates travel deep into alveoli and stays there starting to reduce the active surface area of lungs leading to reduced lung capacity and asthma. Larger particulates are of less concern, although they can irritate eyes, nose, and throat. According to a study in Hong Kong, nearly 20% of ultra-fine particulate samples collected in the city carried hazardous metals. They get through lungs into our blood stream causing e.g. cardiovascular disease and cancer.

One of the most important considerations is to know what pollution needs to be removed from the air as that specifies the required filtration technology. Air pollution can be categorized to two main groups: particulate matter (PM) and gases.

There are different kind of particulates in the air: dust (solid matter that is big enough to be seen by eyes), fine & ultra-fine particulates (solid or liquid matter that cannot be sensed or seen by humans) and microbiological contamination (contain living organisms or were released from living organisms). The main sources of dust (particulates bigger than 75 µm), fine particulates (size ranging from 5 to 50 µm) and ultra-fine particulates (size of 2.5 µm or smaller, also known as PM 2.5) are traffic, biomass burning, construction works and some industrial processes. Also copy machines and printers releases ultra-fine particulates. Microbiological particulates covers the entire range of sizes starting from 0.01 µm viruses to 100 µm pollen.

Typical gases in the polluted outdoor air are e.g. ground-level ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, benzene, lead and carbon monoxide. These are generated in vehicle and power plant combustion and in some industrial processes. Also an open sewage drainages, polluted rivers and landfills releases harmful gases for humans.

Everywhere around the world particulates and gases are in the outdoor air. The main question is how much and what kind of gases, particulates and microbiological contamination? Outdoor air is the biggest source of indoor air pollution in case there is no air purification system in the air intake. Another main pollution group is the chemical and microbiological emissions (e.g. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), mould, fungi and bacteria) from construction materials, furniture and cleaning products. People produce carbon dioxide and can also be a pollution source as sometimes they carry viruses or wear strong perfumes (VOC).

Dust and particulate removal is mainly done using mechanical particulate filters that remove particulates from the air when particulates come in contact with the surface of filter media and adhere to the fibers. Filtration efficiency is depending on the density of media and tightness of filter casing (how much air is passing the filter without being filtered). Filters are classified based on the filtration efficiency to coarse, fine and HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters. Coarse filters removes mainly dust (particulates that are bigger than 10 µm). Fine and HEPA filters removes efficiently also smaller particulates (0.1-10 µm) depending on the filtration class. Fine filters are in the range of EU 7 to EU 9 (European classification) or respectively MERV 13-15 (American classification).

As an example EU 9 / MERV 15 fine filter removes all particulates that are bigger than 2.5 µm and more than 95% of particulates that are size of 0.4 µm. HEPA filters are designed to remove 99.9% of particulates that are bigger than 0.4 µm. However due to more dense filter media, the pressure loss of HEPA filter is much higher than in fine filters and therefore the fan energy required to circulate the same amount of air is higher. HEPA filters are also more expensive than fine filters.

Mechanical filters are either filter media sheets or bags or pleated panels. Typically filter sheets are used only as coarse filters. Proper fine filters are either bag filters or pleated cassettes. Many filters are marketed as fine or HEPA filters, even they do not fulfil the international filter standards. In case filters have an independent third party certification (Eurovent or AHRI), you can be sure that the filter performs as promised. Good filter is also classified either based on EU or MERV rating system, not e.g. as 10 or 5 micron filter.

Another technology to remove particulate matter is to use electrostatic precipitator (ESP) device. It removes fine particulates and smoke from air by first negatively charging the dust particulates (ionization unit) and then collecting them using the positively charged collector plates, where particulates build up and form a layer of dust. Disadvantage of this technology is that the ionization unit creates ozone. According U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ozone can be harmful to human health whether pure or mixed with other chemicals and therefore ozonizing air cleaners cannot be recommended in occupied spaces. However, ozone can be removed using carbon or chemical filter after ESP device. ESP unit requires weekly maintenance of dust collection tray and collector plates in order to avoid dust to be carried back to the room air.

Harmful gases are removed using carbon or chemical filters. Activated carbon has been used in the purification and filtration of gases for a long time. Gas molecules in an air stream enters the large pores at the carbon surface and moves towards the smallest pores in internal surface. There are also new innovative chemical filters available where mixture of carbon and other ingredients (like desiccant or metal silicate) are used. The right mixture of absorption materials is depending on the chemicals that needs to be removed from the air. Life cycle of carbon and chemical filters are depending on the amount of media in a filter and the volume of gases in the air passing through the filter.

Many other technologies used in room air purifiers are used to kill microbiological contamination that is alive and therefore to sterilize the air. Examples of such technologies are UV-lights, cold plasma technology, photo-hydro ionization (PHI), ozonizing and ionizing. Each technology has different impact on various microbiological contaminants and therefore cannot be directly compared. The main question is do they only kill the harmful contamination or do they also remove e.g. the good, healthy bacteria? These technologies have either no or very small impact on particulate pollution removal even some of them contributes in ultra-fine particulate removal. Ultra-fine particulates adhere and form larger particulates that are less harmful for our health and easier to be filtered. But separate particulate filter is required to remove them.

HEPA filters are used to remove both alive and dead microbiological contamination from the air as they filter efficiently also the smallest particulates (0.01 µm). This is the typical reason to use the HEPA filters in the room air purifiers – rather than the ultra-fine particulate matter (PM2.5) removal that can be done with fine filters too.

Typical outdoor air flora of microbiological contamination is not harmful to our health and the immunity of healthy people can protect against them. But in case there is moisture damages or mould growth inside the building, the harmful bacteria and mould spores are emitted to the indoor air. Same is with badly operated and maintained ventilation systems or any standing water that is a base for harmful bacteria growth like legionella. In these cases the air purifiers that kill and remove microbiological contamination is recommended to be used before the damaged materials has been removed. However, the preventive maintenance is the appropriate way to protect occupants from these rather than sterilizing the air unnecessarily in normal conditions.

Some of the latest “mould” research findings in North Europe recommend not to use any kind of sterilization in the occupied areas and even clean the spaces with water only. If the mould and related bacteria is sterilized either with cleaning products, sterilizing liquids or air purifiers, only the less harmful mould gets destroyed leaving more living space for the harmful moulds that will not die during the sterilization. Therefore after some time the toxic metabolic substances of moulds are rather increased in the air than reduced.

Another important principle to maintain clean indoor air besides the air purification is to pressurize the spaces. Positive pressure ensures that air leaks from inside to out preventing dirty outdoor air to enter inside the building. This requires the mechanical ventilation where fan supplies the cleaned air into the building. Unfortunately room air purifiers has no impact on pressurization as they only circulates the air inside the space.

What kind of air purifier is required in India?

In India we have extremely high levels of dust, fine and ultra-fine particulates in the outdoor air. In some specific areas we also have high levels of harmful gases. But the microbiological contamination in the outdoor air is in normal level and is therefore less of concern. But in the spaces with mould or mildew growth, there may be harmful levels of microbiological contamination.

First challenge in many room air purifiers is that they do not have a sufficient coarse filters to remove biggest dust particulates. If the purifier only have a fine or HEPA filter, it gets chocked very quickly and that increases the maintenance requirement and filtration cost. In case the filter is not changed often enough, pressure loss increases and air flow rate reduces. This reduces the filtration efficiency of unit.

In case the main concern is the removal of particulate matter, the HEPA filter is not necessarily required, but fine filter can do the job. However most of the room air purifiers has an integrated HEPA filter as the original application was to remove microbiological contamination in Western buildings with moisture damages and mould growth. HEPA filter can of course be used in India too, but the maintenance have to be sufficient and good coarse filtration is required before it.

Carbon or chemical filter is required if there are harmful gases in the room air or in case unit has the electrostatic precipitator or other technology that generates ozone. Ozonisers are not recommended to be used as room air purifiers in occupied spaces.

Most of the room air purifiers have various technologies to sterilize the air. They are only required in special cases if the microbiological contamination is very high or the user is already allergic or asthmatic. Additional technology makes the units unnecessarily expensive and each one of us should consider our immunity against microbiological air pollution. If we still have a good immunity, do we want to destroy it? Of course, we can always just not to use these functions in our room air purifier.

Typical room air purifier can clean the air in approximately 30-40 m2 and some bigger units slightly more. It is important to follow the manufacturers’ recommendations regarding the floor air, otherwise the filtration efficiency is only local near the air purifier and air stays polluted in the other parts of the space. If the doors are kept closed, each room has to have its own purifier.

Outdoor doors and windows have to be closed and well-sealed, otherwise the air purifier is not able to clean the air. However, this may lead to some other problems like increased carbon dioxide levels or humidity (insufficient ventilation). High carbon dioxide level creates drowsiness and headache for users and high moisture level increases the risk of mildew and mould growth.

Another option would be to install an ambient air purifier unit that takes sufficient amount of outdoor air, filters it and supplies it to the indoor spaces. This option reduces the filtration cost as only the minimum outdoor air requirement needs to be filtered and it prevents the infiltration of dirty outdoor air. Outdoor air supply also ensures low enough carbon dioxide level in the space.

As a summary, the good indoor air purification system consists of:

• Correct air volume / size of room air purifier to clean the entire space;
• Sufficient outdoor air intake to ensure low enough carbon dioxide and humidity levels indoors;
• Coarse filters to protect the fine filter from dust;
• Certified fine filter (HEPA not necessary) to remove fine and ultra-fine particulates;
• Chemical filter in case the ambient air contains harmful gases.

It is also important to use low-emission building materials and cleaning products, remove internal pollution sources and prevent any moisture damages in the building structures.

Air quality needs to be monitored strictly as Diwali approaches along with winters, a time for high level of pollution. Banning of Chinese fire crackers alone cannot help the government to control pollution level during Diwali, but a strong check on the local manufacturers and standardizing the make of crackers is also a must.

Please Read the following article to know more,

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=Needed-air-quality-curbs-on-firecrackers-29102015004009

Good initiation taken by the Haryana government to curb air pollution within state by getting the industries equipped with air pollution control devices and effluent treatment plants.

Please click on the following link to know more;

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/Haryana-factoriesinstall-air-pollution-control-devices-at-PCBs-behest/articleshow/49514973.cms