Tag Archives: clean air

In recent years, all sorts of companies have focused their attention on the environment—and some have intensified efforts to correct the ills of poor air quality due to global air pollution. Now, home furnishing giant IKEA is stepping into the indoor air quality arena in a most unusual way.

Introducing GUNRID

The company has developed a fabric curtain that helps reduce air pollution when exposed to light—both sunlight and indoor lighting. Called the GUNRID, the curtain is coated with a mineral-based treatment that acts almost like photosynthesis, breaking down surface pollutants to reduce indoor air pollution. Given that indoor air is two to five times more polluted than outdoor air—which itself is quite polluted—any measure of help in helping poor air quality is a boon.

“For me, it’s important to work on products that solve actual problems and are relevant to people. Textiles are used across homes and by enabling a curtain to purify the air, we are creating an affordable and space-saving air purifying solution that also makes the home more beautiful,” says Mauricio Affonso, Product Developer at IKEA Range & Supply.

In addition, the company is also committed to reducing air pollution in its manufacturing processes. IKEA is exploring ways to turn rice straw, a rice harvesting residue that contributes to air pollution because it is typically burned for disposal, into a renewable material source for future products.

Still, the company acknowledges that these are small steps. “We know that there is no single solution to solve air pollution,” says Lena Pripp-Kovac, Head of Sustainability at Inter IKEA Group. “We work long term for positive change, to enable people to live healthier and more sustainable lives.”

What can you do about poor air quality now?

Currently, there’s a more proven—and significant—solution to poor air quality. The complete line of AeraMax Professional air purifiers uses a four-stage filtration system employing hospital-like True HEPA filtration to eliminate 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants, including viruses, germs, bacteria, odors and volatile organic compounds, from enclosed indoor spaces. The units also have a unique sensing system, which continually monitors the air, adjusting to clean air when necessary for the ultimate in set-it-and-forget-it convenience.

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As a dental lab owner, you know the air inside the lab is often hazy, what with all the grinding and polishing and chipping and chiseling. But you may not know indoor air—any indoor air—is already two to five times more polluted than outdoor air. That makes air inside dental labs even more problematic.

Unfortunately, some dental lab owners think the solution to bad air lies in focusing on the building’s HVAC system. That won’t solve the problem of poor air quality. Here’s why:

HVAC systems recirculate air, but they don’t do a thing about cleaning the air. HVAC filters can trap very large particles, but things like volatile organic compounds (VOCs), germs, bacteria and allergens pass right through typical HVAC filters. That doesn’t alleviate the problem of poor air quality inside buildings.

Dental lab owners may think installing better filters in existing HVAC systems will eliminate the problem. It won’t. That’s because premium filters designed specifically for HVAC systems are bulky, and while they do a better job of trapping bad air in the direct area near the intake, these thick filters drag down HVAC efficiency, significantly reducing airflow. So, HVAC will work harder, break down more often and still not solve the poor air quality problem. Additionally, these modifications to existing HVAC systems do nothing for areas that aren’t near the intakes.

That’s also true of the intakes around grinding equipment—they will suck in dust in the immediate vicinity of a work station, but don’t help with the dust that escapes the intake and floats in the air.

Perhaps most importantly, HVAC systems spread dust and other contaminants farther and faster through recirculation. In essence, HVAC systems are air movers, not air improvers. There just isn’t enough efficiency in HVAC systems, because they are designed first and foremost to push air throughout buildings. Also, HVAC systems focus on the entirety of buildings, pushing air at the same rate throughout. That means indoor air quality problem areas will be ignored.

Instead of recirculating poor air, lab owners need to focus on removing it. In our opinion, the best way to do that is by installing AeraMax Professional air purifiers. These commercial-grade systems use hospital-type True HEPA filtration to effectively, quickly and efficiently remove 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants, like germs, bacteria, smoke, odors, allergens and VOCs, from indoor air. The four-stage filtration systems work automatically, because the units sense when poor air is present, adjusting to remove the bad air.

And, AeraMax Professional offers an array of different units to accommodate a variety of lab room sizes, meaning you can let your HVAC focus on what it’s meant to be doing. It’s a proven solution for dental labs—a solution dental lab owners need to consider.

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In recent years, scientists and health care professionals have focused more attention on the effects of poor indoor quality in a variety of settings. Two recent studies have turned the spotlight on an area that historically has been rife with germs, viruses and bad air: daycare centers.

Because daycare centers cater to children from infants to toddlers to pre-school-aged children, the chances of passing along germs and bacteria are relatively high.

The Finnish Study

So researchers in the city of Espoo, Finland—part of the metropolitan Helsinki area—looked at a random sample of 30 daycare centers to determine overall indoor air quality, gauging humidity, CO2 concentrations, temperature, airflow and other metrics.

In recent years, scientists and health care professionals have focused more attention on the effects of poor indoor quality in a variety of settings; two recent studies have turned the spotlight on an area that historically has been rife with germs, viruses and bad air: daycare centers.

If the air quality was already compromised, it would be made worse with the introduction of germs, viruses and bacteria. They took air samples during a one-day period and found air quality across the board was poor.

  • CO2 levels were charted beyond safe limits.
  • Older buildings not using newer HVAC systems experienced the worst levels.
  • Airflow was inadequate and temperature and humidity levels varied.

Children and staff were not well served, and air quality levels needed significant improvement. Surveys conducted with staff members cited unpleasant odors as the most prevalent perceptual problem.

The South Korean Study

But the bad air in childcare facilities is not isolated to Finland. A similar study was conducted by researchers in Seoul, Korea, where measurements were taken at 25 daycare centers. The researchers found high levels of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and styrene in the air. Their findings also showed significant levels of bacteria and mold, which was prevalent because of water damage to older centers and buildings. The study concluded that much more needed to be done to ensure healthier environments for children with still developing respiratory systems.

But what to do?

One answer lies in actually cleaning the air. AeraMax Professional air purifiers have been proven to effectively and efficiently remove contaminants from indoor air. Using a True HEPA hospital-type filtration system, AeraMax can rid the air of bacteria, VOCs, viruses, odors, germs and other irritants. It removes up to 99.97 percent of these pollutants from indoor air, sensing when the air needs to be clean automatically.

To see how AeraMax Professional helped childcare centers and nurseries, check out our case studies. Daycare facilities from France to Canada trust AeraMax Professional to make their facilities cleaner and healthier.

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It’s bad enough that the dental profession has been called the most dangerous by the U.S. Department of Labor, now it has to contend with another problem: Silicosis.

Silicosis is something more closely related to the construction industry, where workers breathe in silica dust from construction materials. It results in the scarring of lung tissue from the silica dust, and produces symptoms like coughing, wheezing, sharp chest pains and even fevers. Left untreated, it results in difficulty breathing and even death.

Silicosis is something more closely related to the construction industry, where workers breathe in silica dust from construction materials

So how does the dental profession also suffer from a malady that most often affects rock miners, stone cutters and heavy construction personnel? Seems the grinding that occurs in dental labs and in dental offices produces the same dusty environment. But where construction workers wear elaborate rebreathers to protect against inhaling dust, dental professionals often are left only with surgical masks—or nothing at all.

According to the Centers for Disease Control’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR), research into occupational illness uncovered nine cases where dental professionals had silicosis from long-term exposure—and in some cases, the individuals died from respiratory failure. The MMWR noted that exposure to silica dust in dental labs can occur from mixing powders, removing castings from molds, polishing castings and using silica sand for abrasive blasting and sanding.

Silicosis is something more closely related to the construction industry, where workers breathe in silica dust from construction materials

One way to protect against silicosis is by focusing on air hygiene—scrubbing indoor air of harmful contaminants. AeraMax Professional commercial-grade air purifiers do just that—eliminating up to 99.97 percent of harmful pollutants like germs, dust, allergens, viruses, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odors from enclosed spaces, using hospital-like True HEPA filtration that efficiently and effectively cleans the air.

Using AeraMax Professional air purifiers significantly reduce particulate from indoor air, ensuring that dental lab workers needn’t worry about the hazards of working in lab settings. What’s more, with AeraMax Professional’s PureView technology, occupants can see the purifier’s work in removing particulate from the air.

PureView uses an innovative EnviroSmart 2.0 technology, which employs sensors to scan and analyze a room, activating the air purification system when contaminants are present. Because each unit has a large digital display, occupants can see the cleaning progress.

When cleaning begins, the display announces it in bold letters and cycles through a purification process. As the AeraMax Professional air purifier continues removing particulates from the air, the display will show a readout of the percentage of particles captured. Also, the display offers a visual readout of VOCs and odors in the air to let occupants know the contaminants are being removed.

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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.

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