Air purification technology for COVID-safe schools

Healthy building technology is being rolled out across Australian schools to help create safer learning environments.

The rollout of Delos air purification units commenced in Sydney in November 2021. The first round of schools to install the advanced air filtration technology, including Delos’s high-efficiency particulate air purification units, includes 150 Sydney Catholic schools and several independent schools.

By merging health sciences with building sciences, Delos has been helping schools across the world address airborne health concerns due to COVID-19 through its Healthy Classroom Initiative.

The Healthy Classroom Initiative combines enhanced air purification and operational protocols with the goal of delivering improved health outcomes for students, educators and staff. Leveraging four years of research examining fine and ultrafine particle filtration, including conducting a review of 100-plus air quality devices and technologies, Delos has provided more than 200,000 evidence-based air purification units to school districts, with more than 2.7 million enrolled students collectively, including the public school systems in New York City and Chicago as well as over 50 Catholic schools across the United States.

“We are in talks with the government and independent schools, Catholic schools, universities, TAFE institutions and early learning centres from other parts of the country to further progress installation of the technology in Australia,” said Delos Australia President Bill Giannikos.

Delos’s solutions are informed by science, including its own research platform, the Well Living Lab (founded in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic), which is exclusively committed to research, development and testing of innovations designed to improve human health in the indoor environment.

Delos’s subsidiary, the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), is claimed to be the world’s largest certification body for healthy buildings, with programs now adopted in nearly 100 countries across more than two billion square feet of building spaces.

To understand how air purifiers can impact potentially harmful airborne particles and overall air quality in a school classroom, the Well Living Lab conducted a study in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, using the same air purification units supplied by Delos. Currently under peer review, the study found that these air purification units reduced particle transmission by increasing the number of air changes per hour and allowing a better mix of clean and filtered air back into the room. Air quality was improved throughout the classroom, not just near the unit. As well as this, the accumulation of infectious particles on surfaces was 33% slower when these units were used, compared with using an HVAC system alone.

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