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

Status:

completed 02/2024

Aims:

Standardization of test methods is essential in the field of occupational health and safety to monitor compliance with safety standards and to accurately assess health risks and take appropriate protective measures. Since there are no uniform test standards in Germany for the effectiveness of air purifiers against airborne pathogens, especially viruses, there is a need for a standard procedure. This procedure should cover different technologies and also take into account by-products and parameters relevant to occupational health and safety.

Activities/Methods:

The work packages included 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 were considered.

Results:

In a research project of the Fraunhofer WKI, Department for Material Analysis and Indoor Air Chemistry, in cooperation with the Institute for Animal Hygiene, Animal Welfare and Animal Ethology of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover), a test method for mobile air purifiers was developed and evaluated using different types of devices. The testing of the cleaning performance of a device under defined boundary parameters is based on an emission test chamber method. An impingement method is used to detect cultivable viruses and viral RNA in the test chamber air. Sampling methods are also described for measuring viral loads in test channels.

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