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INTRODUCTION
An increasing awareness in the public sector involving air quality concerns and health related
issues has resulted in the growth of the residential and commercial air treatment products
industries. A number of eld and chamber studies have been performed evaluating the removal
efciency of portable air cleaners for a variety
of contaminants (Foarde et al. 1999; Shaugnessy
*
Corresponding author.
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K. K. Foarde et al.
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K. K. Foarde et al.
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FIGURE 1. Artists drawing of the Dynamic Microbial Test Chamber (DMTC) containing the test air cleaner. The
sampling ports are marked A, B, and C.
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K. K. Foarde et al.
Bioaerosol/Particle Sampling
Two different bioaerosol samplers were used.
The one-stage Andersen (Graseby Andersen,
Smyrna, GA) was used to collect the bacteria
and the mold samples. The AGI-30 (Ace Glass
Inc., Vineland, NJ), containing 40 ml collection
uid, was used for the phage sampling. The experimental conditions and sampling times were
adjusted so that these samplers were used within
upper and lower sampling limits.
The one-stage Andersen sampler is a 400
hole multiple-jet impactor operating at 28 l/min.
The Andersen one-stage is the sixth stage of
an Andersen six-stage. The d50 (cutoff diameter) is 0.65 m m. Originally, the one-stage Andersen was recommended as the sampler of
choice by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists Committee on
Bioaerosols (1989); however, they no longer
specify any one particular sampler. During sampling, air is impinged on an agar-containing
petri dish. Only culturable, viable microorganisms are measured. CFUs are enumerated. A
positive-hole correction is applied to adjust
for the probability that more than one viable microorganism may be collected through a sampling hole and combined with other microorganisms to produce a single CFU (Macher 1989).
The AGI-30 is a high velocity liquid impinger
operating at a ow rate of 12.312.6 l/min. The
d50 is approximately 0.3 m m (Jensen et al. 1992).
The collection uid was nutrient broth with
0.5% NaCl and 0.5% antifoam A (Sigma, St.
Louis, MO). The AGI-30 is the sampler against
which the other commonly used bioaerosol samplers are compared.
A Climet CI-7300 (Redlands, CA) optical
particle counter (OPC) was used to monitor particle levels in real time to allow control of the
experiment within the chamber. The Climet is a
microprocessor based, 6-channel, airborne par-
Test Protocol
The test protocol is described below. It is very
similar to the AHAM method in that the essential elements and steps are present. The primary
differences between the AHAM method and the
present microbial sampling protocol are 1) the
use of microorganisms as the challenge aerosol,
and 2) the microbiological aerosol sampling instrumentation.
Test Protocol:
1. Turn on the chamber HEPA lter, the circulating fan, and the temperature and humidity
control devices.
2. Allow the HEPA lter to clean the chamber air until the background OPC counts,
with 1 min sampling times, are below 100
particles/ft3 on the 15 m m channel.
3. Turn off the HEPA lter and temperature and
humidity control devices on the air handling
unit (AHU), and turn on the Collison nebulizer and run it for approximately 5 min.
4. Turn off the Collison nebulizer and the circulating fan. Wait until the fan stops (approximately 1 min), then start the air cleaner
(particulate matter removal test only) and
take triplicate time zero measurement for the
bioaerosol.
5. Collect OPC measurements every 1 min for
a minimum of 10 min.
6. Collect triplicate bioaerosol measurements at
3, 7, and 10 min (5 and 10 min for the MS2).
As with the AHAM standard method, the
procedural difference between the natural decay measurement and the particulate decay measurement is that after the fan stops in step 4, the
air cleaner is started.
Calculations
The performance of the air cleaner was evaluated by determining the CARm calculated as
the CADR in the AHAM method. To calculate
the CARm, the measured decay (k e ) and natural decay (k n ) rates are rst calculated using the
following formula:
n
lnC ti
ti lnC ti
k=
ti
1
n
n
ti
ti2
n
(1)
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k n ),
(2)
RESULTS
Measurement of Decay Curves
Figures 2, 3, and 4 show the decay curves for
B. subtilis, P. chrysogenum, and MS2, respectively. The numbers of CFUs (B. subtilis, P.
chrysogenum) or PFUs (MS2) are plotted on the
x -axis, versus the time in minutes on the y -axis.
Each data point is the mean of three determinations, and the error bars equal to 1 standard
deviation are shown. The natural decay curves
are labeled k n . The particulate matter removal
decay curves (with the air cleaner running) are
labeled k e . Two natural decay determinations
were performed for each of the three organisms.
Three particulate matter removal decays were
determined for B. subtilis and P. chrysogenum
and ve for the surrogate virus, MS2.
As can be seen in all the gures, there is little
natural decay of any of the organisms in the 10
min that it took to perform the test. However,
when the air cleaner is on the particulate matter
removal, decay is very rapid. Because the MS2
titrations are fairly labor intensive, we were only
able to sample at three time intervals during each
MS2 run. Therefore, a total of ve runs (k e 1
5) were performed to ensure the validity of the
data.
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K. K. Foarde et al.
FIGURE 2. Two natural (kn1, kn2) are measured (ke1, ke2, ke3) decay curves for B. subtilis. Samples collected at 0,
3, 7, and 10 minutes.
FIGURE 3. Two natural (kn1, kn2) and three measured (ke1, ke2, ke3) decay curves for P. chrysogenum. Samples
collected at 0, 3, 7, and 10 minutes.
Determination of CARm
Table 1 presents the CARm results for the three
test organisms. The mean and standard devia-
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FIGURE 4. Two natural (kn1, kn2) and ve measured (ke1, ke2, ke3, ke4, ke5) decay curves for MS2. Samples
collected at 0, 5, and 10 minutes.
TABLE 1. CARm results from testing with the three different microorganisms.
Challenge
Organism
B. subtilis
P. chrysogenum
MS2
Mean B SD
(Bioaerosol Sampler)
Mean B SD
(OPC)
3
3
5
202 6
231 9
267 24
205 4
210 11
ND
ND = Not Done
CADR/CARm units are standardized as CFM
CARm calculated using B. subtilis ke = 0.449; P. chrysogenum ke = 0.460; MS2 k e = 0.524)
used for all tests. As stated earlier, OPC measurements were not done for the MS2. The OPC
data from the 15 m m channel was used to match
the particle size range of the P. chrysogenum.
The OPC data from the 0.71 m m and the 15
m m channels were added together to cover the
B. subtilis size ranges.
The CARms calculated from the bioaerosol
measurements and the OPC measurements were
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K. K. Foarde et al.
Smoke
Dust
Pollen
3
3
3
References
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