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Energy recovery ventilators to combat indoor airborne disease transmission: A Sustainable approach

Date

2024-09-17

Authors

Annadurai, Gurubalan
Mathews, Ashwin Joseph
Krishnan, Easwaran Nampoothiry
Gollamudi, Siddhartha
Simonson, Carey

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Taylor & Francis

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Article

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Abstract

Ventilation plays a crucial role in preventing indoor airborne disease transmission. Nevertheless, ventilation increases the energy consumption of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Therefore, energy efficiency measures or alternative methods must be adopted to reduce the energy demand of HVAC systems which is necessary to achieve sustainability in the building sector. The present study proposes a method of utilizing an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) to provide supplementary ventilation to reduce the airborne disease transmission. The proposed method is tested for an office building with one source room (with an infected occupant) and two connected rooms (no infection source). The contributions of the present study are (i) the development and verification of a new supplement ventilation method using ERV to reduce the probability of infection from airborne pathogens and (ii) providing the economic and environmental benefits of the proposed method to promote its adaption by the building managers/HVAC engineers. The results of the present study show that the proposed method can reduce the probability of infection by 10 to 40% and demonstrate that utilizing ERV is the sustainable and economical method to improve ventilation to reduce indoor airborne disease transmission.

Description

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Science and Technology for the Built Environment on 17 September 2024, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23744731.2024.2399468

Keywords

Ventilation, Infection transmission rate, Effectiveness, Exhaust air transfer ratio, Energy recovery exchangers

Citation

Annadurai, G., Mathews, A. J., Krishnan, E. N., Gollamudi, S., & Simonson, C. J. (2024). Energy recovery ventilators to combat indoor airborne disease transmission: A sustainable approach. Science and Technology for the Built Environment, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/23744731.2024.2399468

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/23744731.2024.2399468

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