Energy and Ultrafine Particle Removal Efficiency of HVAC Air Filters

空气过滤器用于建筑空气系统，以去除空气中的颗粒，保持室内环境清洁。室内空气中的颗粒物会导致健康问题，并降低暴露在不清洁空气中的人的生产力。在建筑系统中安装空气过滤器会增加流动阻力，并需要更多的能量来运行建筑物。目前还没有方法可以准确预测空气过滤器使用的能量，或者比较不同过滤选项的能源效率。这项研究的目的是提供这样一个模型，可用于比较空气过滤器使用目前可用的所有空气过滤产品的信息。该模型将与机场的真实的过滤装置进行比较，以确保足够的准确性。所进行的实验还将研究对人类最有害的尺寸范围内的颗粒（<1微米）与商业空气过滤器的相互作用。这将提供有关空气过滤器捕获小颗粒的有效性的信息。将确定这些颗粒的化学成分，以提供通过当前空气过滤器的颗粒成分的进一步知识。

Air filters are used in building air systems to remove particles from the air and keep the indoor environment clean. Particles in indoor air can cause health problems and loss of productivity for people exposed to unclean air. Installing air filters in the building system increases the resistance to flow and requires more energy to operate a building. There is currently no method to accurately predict the amount energy used by an air filter or to compare the energy efficiency of different filtration options. The goal of this research is to provide such a model that can be used for comparing air filters using information currently available for all air filtration products. The model will be compared against real filter installations at an airport to ensure sufficient accuracy. The experiments conducted will also investigate the interaction of particles in the size range most harmful to humans (<1um) with commercial air filters. This will provide information on the effectiveness of air filters for capturing small particles. The chemical composition of these particles will be determined to provide further knowledge of the composition of particles that are passing through current air filters.