A major concern during the COVID-19 pandemic is indoor air quality. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated that, "The layout and design of a building, as well as occupancy and type of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, can all impact potential airborne spread of the virus. Although improvements to ventilation and air cleaning cannot on their own eliminate the risk of airborne transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the EPA recommends precautions to reduce the potential for airborne transmission of the virus."
GreenMediaHD (GMHD) has developed a system that can be retrofit to an existing air handler unit (AHU) to filter out pollutants and contaminants as the air passes through them. Called the GreenMediaHD Indoor Air Quality System (IAQP), it uses a negative ion injection technique to improve air quality by reducing possible Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) contamination and minimizing the risk of a health hazard from airborne virus and bacteria in the duct system.
A bipolar ionization system is added to the AHU. This system creates a plasma curtain of billions of negative ions to de-activate any potential organic compounds, thus minimizing the possible unwanted VOC sharing with airborne virus and bacteria. When high enough concentrations of negative ions come in contact with harmful pathogens such as a virus, bacteria, or mold, they steal away hydrogen molecules from the pathogens. Without hydrogen, the pathogens are left without any source of energy and they die.
Contemporary Controls plays a key role in this system. Real time air quality data is collected by a series of Wi-Fi multi sensor devices (Temperature, Humidity, CO2, VOC, Fine Dust) and sent to a GMHD gateway with a BACnet/IP server. The gateway is routed into the existing BACnet architecture of the building using our BASrouter model BASRT-B. This is used to route messages between BACnet/IP, BACnet Ethernet and BACnet MS/TP networks. The data from the BACnet IP Server can be accessed via BACnet MS/TP using the BASrouter. It also supports 5 BBMD entries that allows the Air Quality System, if required, to integrate into the subnets of the existing BACnet topology in the building.
For maintenance, new setups and upgrades, the GreenMediaHD Air Quality System can be accessed locally by its web page, or remotely utilizing a Contemporary Controls EIGR-V Skorpion Gigabit IP Router with VPN capability. Both wired and cellular models are available. This allows the support team to remotely make the necessary changes and setups in the AP routers where the sensors are connected, to command the Data Collection Gateway to improve and expand the system and correct any issues.
