Category: CIVIL 460 Course – 2022-2023
Emerging HVAC filtration and air cleaning technologies
Author: González López De Aspe Enrique It is common knowledge that atmospheric pollution has a significant impact on health due to the wide range of harmful particles that may be present in the air we breathe. However, there is a widespread lack of awareness regarding exposure to air pollutants, as this issue is usually linked (…)
Airborne Infectious Disease Transmission in Hospitals: Significance and Control by Ventilation
Author: Wang Yihan It’s been three years since we first heard this draining word: COVID-19. The dominant role of indoor transmission [1] in the spread of this seemingly endless pandemic, is meant to undoubtedly bring the topic of prevention and control of indoor transmission of infectious diseases back into the public spotlight. Probably especially in (…)
Microbiology of the Built Environment
Author: Meier Jan The field of microbiology of the built environment includes the study of microbial diversity, interactions, and microbial ecology in indoor spaces such as workspaces, homes, hospitals, and other indoor spaces. In fact, microorganisms exist in the air, on surfaces and building materials. They are usually dispersed by humans, animals, and outdoor sources. (…)
Nanoparticles: Sources & Exposures
Author: Ana María Palencia Poblet Ana Palencia, April 26th of 2023 Nanoparticles or Ultrafine particles (UFP) have a size ranging from 1 to 100 nm, or about 1/100.000th the width of a human hair. Would you ever imagine such microscope particles can potentially affect your health? In this post, the sources from nanoparticles as well as the (…)
Indoor Radon : Sources, Exposures, Health Effects and Controls
Author: Marc Alassane Touré Radon, the Silent Killer A title that may remind you of the ‘Scream’ movie saga. This time, the killer has been known for decades but still manages to sneak into your homes without any service to save you. If you don’t smoke, you don’t live with smokers either and end up (…)
How does modern furniture impact indoor air quality?
Author: Weiser Simon When I was backpacking in India, I spend some time in the big cities like Delhi and Bombay. One thing, that New Delhi is very famous for is the very high level of air pollution the city suffers from. At that time, I thought, I could never live my life at a (…)
The effect of plants on indoor air quality
Figure 1: picture of TheFacesISeek (Saptarshi) What is the effect of having plants indoors? is it good? how good? and in which way are the plants affecting the indoor climate? This is some of the questions you could ask yourself when you think of indoor climate while looking at your desktop potted plant. Let us (…)
IMPACT OF INDOOR AIR QUALITY ON HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY
Background It is widely recognized that there is a significant relation between indoor air quality and human productivity. Workers exposed to poor air quality may get tired easily, find it difficult to concentrate or even get sick, resulting in less productivity and thus probably remarkable financial loss for employers since staff costs typically occupies about (…)
EMERGING HVAC FILTRATION AND AIR CLEANING TECHNOLOGIES
Air pollution is one of the ten biggest global health threats as stated by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to it’s devastating toll of nearly 7 million death every year as consequence of related illnesses, be for people with preexisting conditions such as allergies or healthy ones [1]. This is mostly attributed to the (…)
HUMANS AS SOURCES OF INDOOR PARTICLES AND GASES
Breathing is a main need for a person to live. In average, we inhale 11.000 litres of air per day1. Bad air quality is a risk for humans. According to the World Health Organization the number of deaths caused by a bad air quality in 2017 reached 4,2 million people2. The effects on humans of (…)