Air Conditioners Services Menu
Our unique environmental chambers allow us to mimic indoor building environments and provide repeatable real time data regarding the impact of your air conditioners on indoor air exposures and building occupant health.
Pricing for the unique service is based upon a daily rate for the chamber and its staff of €1,500 per day. Consumables and assays are additional. Therefore, by selecting the questions, time points and number of organisms, our clients can request bespoke projects and design their own pricing. Itemised project outlines and pricing for PCR or assay analysis basis can be determine for various organism such as Adenovirus, Staph aureus and Tinea Rubren
Service we offer:
- Measurement of circulation and re-entrainment of bio-medical data of air conditioners
- Microbiological elimination efficacy testing of air conditioners
- Anti-microbial and photo-catalytic properties of air conditioners
- Consumer exposure and risk assessment validation models of air conditioners
- State of the Art air sampling techniques in the chamber followed by rapid in in house analytical testing including
- PCR (Virology, Mycology, Bacteriology)
- ELISA (Allergen).
- Ultra-fine particle (UFP) emission studies
- Claims validation
Air Conditioners
iAIR Labs has a state of the art facility with large scale climate controlled chambers where we specialise in key areas of concern for indoor air quality.
In 2020, it was estimated that the world accommodated 1.9 billion air conditioners or air conditioning systems. It is predicted this number will grow to 5.5 billion between now and 2050. The major identified issue with this development is the staggering increase in energy consumption associated with this rise in system numbers. In fact, 39% of the predicted growth in energy consumption over this same time is being attributed to future use of air conditioning systems.
However, this is not the only identified problem as any product designed to move air around indoor spaces, regardless as to why, has the capacity to increase exposures to indoor particulates. Those of most relevance to human health and wellbeing are less than 2.5 microns in diameter, termed PM2.5, these are defined as respirable particles.
Some of the central systems in use are very well designed and incorporate high efficiency filtration and other particle removing technologies in their ducting or elsewhere, hence they contribute positively to air quality and reduce overall exposures to small particulate material. However, over time they are only as good as the received care and maintenance allows them to be.
The bigger concerns are associated with the smaller units designed to cater to the needs of single room occupants. These represent the majority of the 1.9 billion and can either be through the window, split or free standing units. Wherever they source their air, unless an adequate particle removal function is incorporated, they are, at least at the higher fan speeds probably exposing room occupants to an increased level of airborne particulate material. Should there be viruses, bacteria, mould spores, allergens or toxins present in the interior space, this may equate to an increased exposure to these dust associated particles.
The ability of airmid healthgroup to measure these bioaerosols both on surfaces and in air allows us, as part of the testing program, assess any increased consumer risk associated with use of these product types. This capability can be undertaken either in our facility or in the field as would be necessary for the larger multi-space installations.
Presently, many of these small “air con” units have at best only rudimentary filtration systems in use. Increasing filtration efficiency comes with the added expense of increased energy usage as well as wear and tear on the electric motor secondary to a pressure drop across the filter. Hence, a need for the development of other effective technologies exists that can function either alone or when combined with filtration.
