WFI  Knows how to Make a Virtual Conference Valuable

Gates Says We Will Not Be Back to Normal Until Sometime in the First Half of 2022

Serum Institute of India will be a Critical Vaccine Supplier

Allergens can be Removed Along with COVID

Mann + Hummel Uses Nanofiber Media in Engine Air Filters as Well as Masks

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WFI  Knows how to Make a Virtual Conference Valuable

Waterloo Filtration Institute conducted the first session in a two day conference on air filtration and COVID. There were meaty presentations, good questions, and a smooth transition between speakers. This first day focused on filters while the one tomorrow will focus on masks. Here are summaries for the first day.

Cleaning Air during A Global Pandemic, Dr. Thomas Caesar, Freudenberg Filtration Technologies

General: Air filtration has never been under such a high public focus than it is today, during the Covid19 pandemic, especially as there is strong indication that the SARS-CoV2 virus can spread as aerosols via the air. As the virus may attach to smaller or larger particles (solid or liquid), a large range of particle sizes has to be considered from some micrometers down to the nano scale. Air handling units using high quality and efficient fine filters and by regarding specific advice given that the pandemic times do reduce the virus concentration in buildings. Together with other measures like keeping distance and wearing face masks this can reduce the infection risk significantly.

Insight: It is complex to select the best combination of tactics to achieve maximum cost effectiveness.

Recent advances in assessing the role of respiratory droplets in spreading of COVID-19, Dr. Abhishek Saha, University of California San Diego

General: Respiratory droplets play a critical role in the transmission of the SARS-CoV2 virus, responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, it is important to understand and analyze the mechanisms of evaporation, precipitation, and transport of these droplets ejected from our oral or nasal cavities during respiratory events such as sneezing, coughing, talking, or breathing. In this talk, Ahishek highlighted some key aspects which control the lifetime of these droplets and connect it to a pandemic model in an effort to assess the growth in the infected population. He also discussed the relative probabilistic contributions from droplets vs aerosol in the transmission of this virus at given ambient climate conditions. He concluded the presentation with a note on the importance of masks in restricting the transmission of respiratory droplets and showed how improperly designed masks can have severely opposite effects.

Insight: Droplets evaporate and create small salts which will penetrate inefficient media.

Impact of COVID 2019 on the Air Filtration Industry, Bob McIlvaine, The McIlvaine Company

General: The Coronavirus is not disappearing. As school has started in Europe, new outbreaks have arisen. Experts now warn that the deaths in the U.S. will range from 300,000 to 600,000 by the end of the year. India is registering 90,000 new cases per day. A vaccine is not going to be 100% effective. There is increasing evidence that much of the transmission is through small aerosols. MERV 8 filters will not remove a high percentage of the virus and are likely to be aerosol generators for larger droplets. These conditions create a very large market opportunity for the filtration industry. The market will not experience a sharp peak as the benefits of cleaner indoor air become permanently established.

Insight:  Media effectiveness for masks or HVAC filters is efficiency minus resistance.

Center of Excellence in Protective Equipment and Materials, Dr. Ravi Selvaganapathy, McMaster University, Canada

General: The current COVID-19 pandemic caught Canada on a flat foot. The country did not have sufficient local manufacturing capability nor testing and validation facilities to respond quickly when supply chains across the world shut down. In this talk, Ravi described one of Canada’s most comprehensive responses in assisting local manufacturing and establishment of a test facility that has enabled local manufacturers of apparel, automotive components, and construction to pivot to the manufacture of personnel protective equipment (PPE). In assisting these companies, broad outlines of an integrated research and development program were realized, which led to the establishment of the Center of Excellence in Protective Equipment and Materials (CEPEM) as a one of a kind facility in Canada.

The COVID pandemic and its aftermath have significantly changed how PPEs are used. These changes in use call for a significant redesign of PPEs as well as the development of new materials and manufacturing processes suited for further use cases. There is also a need for the development of specific and custom standards for the evaluation of PPEs in these settings. Finally, natural and sustainable materials need to be incorporated into PPEs instead of fossil fuel-derived materials in order to reduce the impact of their increased use. All of these considerations are interrelated, and a comprehensive research program is required to address all aspects of this problem. In this talk, Ravi  provided some examples of such an integrated approach to the development of PPEs.

Insight:  A combination of face shield and filter has a large amount of filter media.

Shifting Paradigms for the Future of Air Filtration, Hunter Most, AAF Flanders

General: Indoor air quality is at the forefront of the public consciousness more than ever as facilities of all types continue to be reoccupied after pausing operations due to Covid-19. Once a passing thought for many facility managers, air filtration is now extremely important as they strive to address the concerns of occupants. Thinking of air quality as a matter of safety, as opposed to simply comfort, has dramatically changed the way that consumers make decisions regarding the products and services used to attain clean air. The approach to solving air quality problems has fundamentally changed as decisions have been informed by shifting paradigms with respect to almost every aspect of the technology. A previously common view of filtration as a commodity product has given way to a highly engineered, value-driven selection process. Facilities have a renewed level of focus on materials, performance verification, and cost optimization as they explore new use cases for filtration technologies. These paradigm shifts affect multiple professional disciplines. It is critical that these factors are prioritized as the filtration and HVAC industries mobilize to meet these new challenges with novel and innovative solutions. A comprehensive grasp of this information is also essential across facility management, life safety, and academia. Cooperation from such a cross-sectional shared understanding will provide the best possible built environments today and ensure that the environments of tomorrow are even better. IAQ Health and Safety Solutions Associated with COVID-19

Insight: One paradigm shift is from comfort to safety as a driving force.

How the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic has forever influenced the air filtration industry, Joe, Gorman, Camfil

General: On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced publicly that COVID-19 disease was officially a global pandemic. During the proceeding months, and as COVID-19 cases grew across the globe, a lot of speculation grew around the path of transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. To this day, there is still debate around the primary path of transmission, even though there are numerous studies and research professionals who suggest the virus can in fact be transmitted through the air. In May of 2020, through the advice of ASHRAE, the Center for Disease Control announced publicly that the recommended filtration efficiency for public HVAC systems should be a minimum of MERV 13 in order to provide a safe environment. This announcement sparked an unprecedented demand for high-efficiency air filters without the preparedness of the air filtration industry, the nonwoven media suppliers and the facility engineers who were blind-sided by the HVAC system changes that would need to be made. Now that the general population is aware that high-efficiency air filtration is crucial to the overall health of the building occupants, the air filtration industry as a whole will forever be driven towards delivering high-performance air filters to the market.

Insight:  MERV 13 charged meltblowns quickly loses efficiency to below MERV  8.

A Closer Look at Air Filtration, Indoor Air Quality and Covid-19, Jim Rosenthal, Tex-Air Filters

General: The world of Indoor Air Quality has gone through a major transition since January of 2020. Researchers and practitioners, including those in the air filtration industry, are in high demand to provide good information on how to deal with the spread of Covid-19. Building owners and managers need answers to the many questions about making their facilities safer so that they can be used productively. This presentation focused on how air filters affect indoor air quality and how air filters can be used to limit exposure to Covid-19 aerosols. It covered filter efficiency and explained why certain levels of filtration are being recommended. But also focused on filter “effectiveness” and drew on recent research to cover how and where filters should be used to obtain optimum results.

Insight:  Some charged meltblowns do not lose efficiency quickly. If high resistance in MERV 13 reduces air changes per hour then it may be less effective than MERV 8.

The Digital Transformation of Clean Air Management, Dr. Ellie, Amirnasr, qlair

General: It is no secret that our world has become rapidly digitized, and facility management is no exception. With the introduction of smart buildings and IoT devices, digital solutions are being developed every day to help facility managers save time, money, and energy. But while we attach sensors and monitors to just about every piece of equipment in our buildings, we often overlook the world’s most valuable asset... clean air. Utilizing clean air management effectively involves selecting the right sensors for your facility’s goals, compiling, and analyzing the data to develop actionable insights, and ultimately using these data to make critical, informed decisions on what to do next. In doing so, your facility will realize significant energy, material, labor, and operating costs savings.

Insight:  Continuous monitoring of CO2, particulate, and RH provide very valuable air quality management tools.

 

Gates Says We Will Not Be Back to Normal Until Sometime in the First Half of 2022

Bill Gates says the recent groundbreaking developments in vaccines are a good sign that the end of the pandemic could be in sight, but it will be some time until the entire world sees its benefits.

"By the summer of 2021, the rich countries will have more vaccine coverage than other countries," he told the Hindustan Times.

"So, the rich countries will be going mostly back to normal. But I still think because the virus will be in the world, we still will be somewhat conservative about large public events, we will still have some mask-wearing.

"We really need to get this virus eliminated, almost everywhere or else we have seen even in countries that have done a super good job — like Australia or Singapore or Hong Kong or South Korea — they always run a risk of reinfection.

"So they've had to restrict tourism and other travel, but by summer that will start to open up.

"They won't be totally back to normal but sometime in the first half of 2022, I do think we will be able to say that we're back to normal."

In another interview with NBC, Gates warned that "the next four or five months will be quite bleak" due to it being winter in the northern hemisphere.

 

Serum Institute of India will be a Critical Vaccine Supplier

The factory at the Serum Institute of India, a manufacturer of immunobiological drugs, appears ready to play a global role in the production of Covid-19 vaccines, once they are developed, because few manufacturers can match the scale of its facilities.

As a leading supplier to the developing world, it is also in the forefront of efforts to combat “vaccine nationalism,” where wealthy countries such as the United States pay to secure a massive number of doses to help their citizens first, while poor countries wait at the back of the line.

“The only choice the world community has is to fire as many barrels as possible to try and get as many vaccines as possible so as to improve our chances of dealing with this disease,” said Adar Poonawalla, the company’s chief executive.

Normal as it might seem to want to stop the virus at home before worrying about the rest of the world, health experts warn that, absent international immunization, the virus will continue to spread.

“Covid anywhere is Covid everywhere” said Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation. “Even if you vaccinate the entire Midwest of the United States or every single person in our country … if you still have Covid raging in another country, it’s going to bounce back to our borders.”

Since the start of the pandemic, which has infected more than 50 million people worldwide, governments have scrambled to secure supplies of any future vaccine.

A study released this month by the Duke University Global Health Innovation Center found that some rich countries have already struck deals to procure enough vaccine to inoculate their own populations many times over before poorer countries obtain any vaccine at all.

According to the researchers, the U.S. “already has agreements to purchase enough doses to cover 230% of its population and could eventually control 1.8 billion doses—about a quarter of the world’s near-term supply.”

A leading vaccine candidate — from the drug company Pfizer, which reported this week that initial trials showed 90 percent efficacy — is already tied up in advance purchase agreements with a handful of countries, including the United States, for 100-million doses.

With more vaccines nearing approval, the World Health Organization is calling for a more equitable distribution to stop the pandemic.

“The first priority must be to vaccinate some people in all countries, rather than all people in some countries,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in September.

“If people in low- and middle-income countries miss out on vaccines, the virus will continue to kill, and the economic recovery globally will be delayed,” Tedros said.

As the demands of rich countries have already cornered the market in future vaccines from European and American manufacturers, Indian companies will likely play a large part in meeting the massive worldwide demand.

The Serum Institute has plans to manufacture five Covid-19 vaccines, to be distributed half in India and half to the developing world.

The vials rolling off conveyor belts at the institute are filled with the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and licensed to AstraZeneca, which is in late-stage trials around the world.

A worker at the Serum Institute of India was shown holding a vial of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine candidate being produced under the name Covishield. Sheldon Healy / NBC News

The vaccine has not yet been approved for widespread use, but Serum is churning it out anyway, so that, if it is proven effective and passes regulatory hurdles, it will be ready to distribute immediately.

The company has agreed on a deal, funded by the Gates Foundation, to sell a combined 200 million doses of the Oxford vaccine and another candidate from Noavax to lower- and middle-income countries through the World Health Organization-led Covax facility.

Covax is a program that will pool resources among countries to buy eventual Covid-19 vaccines and distribute them more equally globally, avoiding the bilateral advance purchase agreements that countries have been making with pharmaceutical companies.

So far, Covax has lined up deals for 700 million doses of three vaccine candidates from AstraZeneca, Novavax and GSK-Sanofi.

The vaccines Serum has agreed to supply are just a fraction of the 2 billion doses Covax aims to distribute by the end of 2021.

India itself is desperate for a vaccine. The nation of 1.3 billion people — about 17 percent of the world’s population — now trails only the United States in the number of coronavirus cases.

Serum plans to address both the worldwide crisis and the one at home at the same time by reserving half of its vaccines for India and exporting the rest.

“We believe in protecting the rest of the world as well as India. And I'll tell you why: Not only because of the ethical question — but also it's logical,” Poonawalla said.

“If other economies don’t restart … that doesn’t help India” he said. “We are a global economy.”

Serum’s plan to export so much of the vaccines it is licensed to produce is also a business decision.

The company, which expanded from a small business deriving vaccines from the serum found in horse blood in the 1960s, has made its name — and its profits — from producing vaccines for sale to the developing world, mostly Africa and Asia, at large scale and low cost.

The company says that 65 percent of children around the world receive at least one vaccine made by Serum in their lifetimes.

Dr. Rory Horner, a development economist at the University of Manchester in England, who has been researching India’s role in the global pharmaceutical industry for over a decade, said Indian companies have long played a major role supplying vaccines and medications to developing countries.

He described it as a “win-win” for the country that he expects to continue with Covid-19 vaccines.

“It’s good for the industry, but it’s also good for reputation abroad,” Horner said. “And we’re going to see elements of vaccine diplomacy and not just vaccine nationalism.”

As the world fights to end the Covid-19 pandemic, a construction site on the Serum campus foreshadows the challenges of the future.

It’s what Poonawalla called a “pandemic-level” manufacturing facility, “which basically means I can make any kind of product there up to a billion doses,” he said.

“Eventually, I think every part of the world will need a facility like this going forward, because this is not the last pandemic. “

 

Allergens can be Removed Along with COVID

According to the World Health Organization, allergies are now the fourth most common chronic illnesses worldwide They are also exacerbated by various particulate matter and harmful gases in the air, which are at their highest levels in larger cities and industrial locations. In general, it is clear that the proportion of people who suffer from allergies is particularly high in populous, highly industrialized regions.

In South Korea, 59 % of the population are treated for allergy symptoms, in Japan that figure is 44 %, in the USA 28 % and in Europe 20 %. In Germany, 35 to 40 % of residents suffer from allergy-related illnesses, whereby 86 % of allergy sufferers suffer from pollen-related allergies, while 40 % are allergic to pets and 14 % to mold spores – those figures continue to rise

In particular, the number of those allergic to pollen is rising worldwide. The cost of treating these patients amounts to approximately Euro 240 million annually in Germany alone. If pollen, bacteria, mold spores and other tiny particles make their way into the interior of a vehicle through the ventilation ducts, they can provoke allergic reactions.

The protection of vehicle occupants is therefore increasingly a focal point for developers: while the first cabin filters aimed to protect the components of an air-conditioning system against contamination, modern variants protect the passengers against harmful allergens and germs in the ambient air.

Common cabin filters include a particulate filter and frequently also an activated carbon layer. This is also true for the cabin filters from MANN+HUMMEL. The particulate filter layer almost completely separates coarse particles such as dust, pollen, and tire debris as well as the smallest, respirable particles such as particulate matter. The layer of activated carbon adsorbs harmful gases, unpleasant odors, and ozone almost completely from the air flowing through the system.

But these cabin filters also have a third layer with a special biofunctional coating containing polyphenols. Polyphenols are natural products with an anti-inflammatory effect and are perceived to promote good health. They are present in plants such as green tea and pomegranates and many others and have the ability to adsorb allergens and make them harmless. This mechanism is exploited by MANN+HUMMEL and those suffering from allergies can breathe freely.

https://www.mann-hummel.com/fileadmin/corporate/04_Unternehmen/5_Download%20Center/05_Produktinformationen/1_Luftfilter_und_Ansaugsysteme/Artikel_Filter-als-Schutz_EN_V1.pdf

 

Mann + Hummel Uses Nanofiber Media in Engine Air Filters as Well as Masks

Combustion air always contains particles which should not be allowed to penetrate the inside of the engine. The application of a highly efficient air filter is therefore essential in order to protect the engine and its components such as the turbocharger or mass air flow sensor against increased wear and defects caused by dirt particles.

MANN+HUMMEL develops nanofiber coated filter media for the highly efficient separation, also amongst others, of fine particles. These filter media from MANN+HUMMEL are characterized by a verifiably higher separation efficiency along with the high dust holding capacity.

A high-tec nanofiber coated filter media from MANN+HUMMEL is the first choice for vehicles which work in environments with a high level of soot or fine dust pollution. Typical application areas here are dusty construction sites, mines, and car rallies.

Nanofiber filter medium before and after loading with dust particles
under real conditions (field test).

Good particle separation performance along with low flow restriction

ISO 5011 separation performance tested with ISO fine test dust (ISO 12103-01: A2). Results from filter elements with same size under typical conditions for heavy duty engine air intake. Separation performance changes with the changed test conditions (filtration velocity).

Flat sheet test with ISO fine test dust (ISO 12103-01: A2). Determination of fractional separation efficiency during the first 60 seconds. The curves shown are based on average values. Individual values may deviate slightly. Fractional separation efficiency changes with changed test conditions.

MANN+HUMMEL has successfully used nanofiber technology for a number of years in series applications for the commercial vehicles sector. The nanofiber filter media consists of a carrier media and an extremely thin layer of ultra-fine polymer fibers. The fibers with a diameter of less than one micrometer are approximately 200 times smaller than the fiber diameter of the carrier material. This leads to a considerable improvement in particle separation. At the same time nanofibers offer a further advantage: In spite of the high separation efficiency, the flow restriction remains very low. 

A comparison of the nanofiber filter media to the carrier material on its own demonstrates the performance which nanofiber technology offers filters. In the test of filter elements according to ISO 5011, nanofiber filter media retained up to 10 times more dust compared to the carrier material on its own. Standard media made from cellulose enable the separation of 99.9% of the total mass of dust particles in the air. The closely meshed nanofiber layers allow separation efficiency to rise to 99.99%.

The high separation performance ensures that also smaller particles are separated by the nanofiber layer of the filter media. In order to determine the separation efficiency for a certain particle size, particles with a defined size are counted in the air flow upstream and downstream of the filter media. The results are shown using fractional separation efficiency curves. The nanofiber layer applied to the carrier verifiably reduces the passage of fine particles and therefore offers greater protection for the engine and its sensitive components.

R&D Tools

Control of the pore size distribution of the nanofiber media by means of analysis software for targeted separation performance.

MANN+HUMMEL uses simulations, laboratory tests and special analysis software to improve nanofiber coatings for customized applications and combines this technology with other media and materials.

In the development process MANN+HUMMEL uses analysis software (with a patent pending) which is able to automatically determine the fiber diameter distribution and pore size distribution from scanning electron microscope images of nanofibers. This distribution substantially determines the separation efficiency and flow resistance of the media.