Indoor Air Pollution. UV And Air Pollutants

The air in today's buildings can contain different microbial contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, mold, fungi and spores. Bioaerosols are the airborne microbes, their fragments, toxins and waste products. Numerous studies have found high concentrations of such contaminants in the air handling equipment and in the air inside the places where people live and work. These indoor air pollutants can make the air quality less than desirable, may even cause unhealthy effects ranging from allergies to tuberculosis, and are actually the cause of death to an estimated 8.5 million people annually.

According to the EPA "Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by a wide array of products numbering in the thousands. Examples include: paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings..."

The UVC radiation itself can not destroy VOC but UVC is used as a part of a process called Photocatalytic Oxidation which can reduce or virtually eliminate VOC from the indoor air. In the Photocatalytic Oxidation process VOC are trapped by a photocatalyst - most often titanium dioxide (TiO2) - which is activated by UVC radiation. The harmful VOC are oxidized and turned into water and carbon dioxide.

Some studies state that properly designed and installed UV air cleaners will eradicate or greatly reduce the microbial contaminants from the indoor air. This is why the indoor air quality in public buildings has been addressed by specific requirements of UV installation inside the HVAC systems.

When the problem of residential indoor air quality became apparent, ultraviolet technology became the proven answer to effectively controlling airborne microbial pollutants. The artificially generated UV can reduce or virtually eliminate all DNA based air pollutants that regular filtering systems do not catch.

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