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These days, facility managers have more responsibilities. More occupant interaction, more belt-tightening decisions—and more opportunities to truly affect change in their facility. This is why the director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment, Joseph Allen, Ph.D., stated that a facility manager has more of an impact in the health and well-being of the occupants than physicians.
Find out more about how you can clean smarter, not harder.
Sure, houseplants can enliven an indoor environment, but can they actually alter it for the better? According to scientists and other lab coat types, certain ones can.
That’s because some houseplants traffic in something called phytoremediation, which acts as a catalyst to remove pollution from either the air or soil. Farmers for years have used phytoremediation techniques to combat contaminants and heavy metals in soils, growing specific plants in polluted soil to leach out the bad stuff. Once the soil is no longer harmful, the farmers then rotate crops back in.
Cleaning Ozone
This concept also extends into the general population. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University conducted tests to see whether ozone levels could be affected by common houseplants indoors. Given that ozone is a major component of air pollution, the researchers theorized that if houseplants could have a positive effect in reducing ozone levels, they could rid indoor environments—both homes and buildings—of pollution.
The researchers pumped measured ozone into a closed environment with common spider plants and snake plants; they also replicated the environment in a chamber without the plants to compare ozone levels. The result: ozone levels significantly decreased in the area with the houseplants.
NASA has also conducted tests on houseplants, finding that some were so effective at removing irritants that greenery is being considered as ridealong material in future space missions.
Those types of findings have spurred interest in using plants to improve indoor air quality. And, in recent years, forward-minded facilities have employed interior landscaping services that use more than just the typical fake-tree-in-a-huge-pot approach to greening up buildings, opting for real plants that can do real good.
The Best Plants For The Job
In fact, there are a number of common houseplants that pull volatile organic compounds (VOCs) out of the air, processing the irritants and producing oxygen. So if you want to improve air quality, consider adding some of these plants to your building décor:
Spider Plant—this easy-to-grow plant with arched yellow, white and green leaves quickly produces offshoots that resemble “spiders” hanging from a stem, which then can be trimmed and replanted, creating more plants. As mentioned above, the spider plant has been shown to be extremely effective at removing ozone from the air. A source of ozone in buildings: copy machines.
Anthurium—This dramatic and exotic-looking plant features red, heart-shaped flowers and thrives in indirect sunlight (read: almost every corporate environment devoid of ceiling-to-floor spanning windows). The dark leaves process ammonia, the toxic chemical toluene, xylene and formaldehyde.
Ficus Tree—this office mainstay grows quickly and can be quite large, and removes benzene and trichloroethylene from the environment.
Bamboo Palm—These bushy plants also remove benzene and trichloroethylene from the air, as well as formaldehyde.
A Better Way To Clean The Air
Of course, a simple way to remove VOCs, allergens and viruses from indoor air doesn’t require a green thumb at all. AeraMax Professional’s line of commercial air purifiers remove up to 99.9% of airborne contaminants from indoor air. And, they’re the only solution proven to capture airborne flu virus.
When you walk into a room and see a device attached to the wall, it’s natural to wonder about its function and purpose. So how do air purifiers work? And what separates the best of the best?
For starters, there are several different methods purifiers can use to clean the air, including ionizers, ultraviolet light and filtration. The best air purifiers, whether personal or commercial, will efficiently remove contaminants from the air, minimize energy consumption, maintain a safe noise level and integrate seamlessly into any environment.
We prefer true HEPA filter technology complemented by a pre-filter to remove large particles such as dust and a carbon filter to remove odors and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). True HEPA filters must meet rigorous standards set out by the U.S. Department of Energy, such as removing 99.97 percent of particles that are 0.3 microns. If you see language such as “HEPA-like” or “Euro HEPA,” know that it’s misleading language for purifiers that don’t meet the standard.
AeraMax Professional works by drawing polluted air in and filtering out more than 99 percent of contaminants, including dust, mold spores, germs, VOCs, odors and allergens. After the air is filtered, it is ionized and recirculated back into a room. When complemented with good ventilation and minimize contamination from harmful sources by removing hazardous building materials such as cleaning products, air purifiers help ensure clean and healthy environments for building occupants.
Of course, efficient energy usage, worker productivity and aesthetic design are integral to a truly well-functioning air purifier. With AeraMax Professional, we developed patented EnviroSmart™ Technology so that the device can sense a room’s air quality and occupancy. This allows AeraMax Professional to adjust to a room’s condition, optimizing performance, saving energy, and extending filter life. What’s more, our quiet mode setting regulates the machine so as to not disrupt meetings.
Other than an occasional filter change, this makes commercial grade air purifiers a targeted solution to providing cleaner facilities by improving indoor air where it’s needed most, such as offices, schools and residential facilities.
A statistic that gets tossed around a lot lately is that indoor air can be two to five times more polluted than air outdoors. Considering so much time is spent indoors, this is certainly cause for alarm. However, indoor air quality and outdoor air pollution are often viewed as two separate issues despite being very much connected.
How does outdoor pollution get inside?
Outdoor air pollution is one of several significant contributors to poor indoor air quality. When we enter a facility from outside, we’re bound to bring in some pollutants with us, not just from the air, but also toxins on our shoes such as urban grime or lawn chemicals. We also bring in allergens, such as pollen, that might be clinging to clothes or hair.
The danger outdoor air pollution poses to lung health is exacerbated in areas close to heavy traffic or other sources of pollution, because it is more likely to enter indoors. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, outdoor air enters buildings three ways: infiltration, natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation.
However, the circulation of outdoor air is necessary to creating healthy indoor air quality. Recirculated air, if not properly filtered, allows contaminants to build up over time and become harmful to respiratory health. In other words, since there are so many contaminants emitted indoors from building materials, cleaners and other sources, outdoor air is needed to flush them out.
This is perhaps the most important connection between outdoor air pollution and poor indoor air quality. Unsafe outdoor environments means, air can’t be readily circulated indoors. Before entering the building, the air will either have to be continuously or indoor air will have to be constantly recirculated and purified.
Essentially, the cleaner the outdoor air, the easier it is to use natural and mechanical ventilation to keep indoor air healthy.
Indoor air quality is an issue that has to be locally addressed by facility managers and demands more attention. Commercial grade air purifiers remove 99.9 percent of contaminants from indoor air, making them an efficient solution for removing airborne impurities in common areas where it’s needed most.
To facility managers, HEPA is a common phrase, but to the rest of the world it’s just a buzzword. The hype surrounding high-efficiency particulate arrestance (HEPA) filters is real, but how do these filters actually function? We have all the facts about air filtration for facility managers and indoor air quality enthusiasts alike.
Defining HEPA
High-efficiency particulate arrestance may sound like a loaded term, but essentially this designation is given to filters that use a combination of three methods to collect and remove dust and other contaminants from the air. In the U.S., HEPA standards created by the Department of Energy require filters to effectively remove 99.97 percent of dust particles 0.3 micrometers. If we move over the decimal point, it’s easy to visualize that these filters only allow about 3 of 10,000 particles to pass through.
HEPA terminology
Facility managers in particular should be wary of air purifier labeling, as some products use the term “HEPA-type filters,” which doesn’t require adhering to the U.S. standards. On the other hand, products labeled “PlasmaTrue™ and true HEPA filter technology,” such as the AeraMax® Professional, have been proven to meet these standards.
“Euro HEPA” is another term that gets thrown around often, but don’t let this designation fool you. Compared to U.S. standards, the European definition of a HEPA air filter is more lenient, mandating that the filter must only remove 85 percent of particles that are 0.3 micrometers.
How does a HEPA air filter work?
In the past, air purifiers with true HEPA filters have been used in buildings such as laboratories and health care facilities, but as continuing research reveals the health risks associated with poor IAQ, these devices can be more prevalent in shared spaces.
HEPA air filters don’t simply catch particles in the way you might imagine a fish getting caught in a net. Instead, these filters use air flow to catch particles by three different methods: impaction, interception and diffusion.
In a true HEPA filter, these methods join forces to remove 99.97 percent of contaminants, including dust, allergens, germs and volatile organic compounds. Understanding this terminology makes it easier for facility managers to select the best commercial grade air purifiers and proactively scrub IAQ problem areas.
