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Systemair in conversation: IAQ by design, not demand
Morten Schmelzer, Head of Group Public Affairs, interviews Dr Iyad Al Attar, Independent Air Filtration Consultant. They discuss the importance of bringing air quality into the spotlight. They also delve into the pillar of sustainable urban development as a tool of attracting people, prosperity, and investments.
Indoor Air Quality
Morten Schmelzer: Let’s start with the most essential question: Why can ventilation and filtration systems not fail?
Dr Iyad Al Attar: First and most importantly, they are critical to providing fresh and clean air to indoor occupants. However, it’s not only about ensuring systems are not failing but also having systems that propel the air quality cause and provide not only acceptable but also the best air quality possible. What we really need to examine is the appropriate human occupancy, given the installed ventilation and filtration system, so that this system can respond to any variation in indoor air quality (IAQ). Don’t forget the core undertaking here is to facilitate pleasant, safe, and healthy living for human occupants.
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Morten: Why is keeping the CO₂ level within comfortable levels so important?
Dr Iyad: The health impacts of high CO₂ are very well established and extensively researched. High pollutant concentrations in the indoor air can cause short and long-term health impacts. Some may not be visible or felt in the short term, but exposure to even a low concentration of pollutants puts us at a greater risk.
Morten: Why, in many countries, specifically outside the European Union, do you see a focus on recirculation?
Dr Iyad: Conceptually, it’s a cheaper way to get clean and fresh air, but then there is an issue of how you filter the recirculated air. So far, you cannot capture CO₂ using filtration. As a result you must ventilate, but if you recirculate inappropriately, you're probably putting the human occupants at a much greater risk.
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Morten: Isn't providing fresh air way more expensive?
Dr Iyad: Today's innovations have really changed how people perceive and conceive indoor environments. Advanced technologies have gone beyond conventional systems to ensure efficient performance and facilitate a safe and pleasant environment. So, they may have been expensive decades ago, but today’s technologies can bring the outcomes at a much lower cost in terms of efficiency, lower pressure-intensive filtration and much more sustainable performance.
Morten: We certainly have technologies today to provide very healthy indoor air in a highly energy efficient manner.
Dr Iyad: Of course! This is why we need to incorporate such technologies from day one when retrofitting existing cities or designing future cities. We have major homework to do in order to address the challenges regarding existing buildings. Retrofitting may not be as easy as expected, but is it necessary? Absolutely. We need to retrofit because you cannot accommodate high-efficiency filtration at a single stage, and you cannot accommodate efficient ventilation systems on systems that, for example, feature ‘on-and-off’ systems or supply the same ventilation rates, whether the indoor space is occupied or not.
Morten: What’s a good ventilation rate?
Dr Iyad: Well, we can address it by looking at new standards or by taking an occupant or a square meter point of view. Of course, there are challenges in every case, such as in terms of the proximity to human occupants, whether in a school or, perhaps, in a hospital where it's very difficult to control the air quality because you've got visitors, patients and staff. The dynamics surrounding the air quality are so complex that extensive engineering is needed to just be able to do it. So, yes, the standards are there; you can refer to the rates, but the point is, how do we eventually implement this? It’s easy to say I will need seven changes per hour per person indoors. But do you have the mechanism to measure whether you deliver these ventilation rates per person or square meter for the occupied space? I think there is a gap to be bridged regarding implementing the new standards. We've tweaked standards quite a bit in the past five years. It's maybe a good sign that we're finally on the right track. But I think what's more important is having relevant ventilation standards, delivering ventilation rates, and eventually, fresh air to the human occupants.
Morten: Energy efficiency has been the keyword in recent years if not decades. How can we make healthy indoor air as important as energy efficiency?
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Dr Iyad: Energy efficiency is the song we've been singing for the past five decades. It has been getting a lot of funding, attention, and design emphasis. The only way air quality would be brought to the spotlight is a pandemic or any other unpleasant environmental consequence. But the best way forward is to embed air quality from day one and invite air quality to be at the forefront of your IAQ by design, not demand.
Doing this gives you an overview of the holistic performance of the ventilation system from an air quality and inclusion standpoint. But do not wait until you finish the building and hand it over only to find out you have issues with human occupancy, too-high CO₂ , and excessive VOCs . Now, you must retrofit, considering ideal human occupancy relative to air filter performance ventilation rates. So, we need to rethink our approach if we are really serious about achieving healthy buildings. Otherwise, it’s just wishful thinking and a slogan to embrace but never achieve.
Morten: We already have standards that, to a certain extent, prescribe the ventilation rates per hour for different building types. However, sometimes, these standards are too complex, and we are overcomplicating things instead of just saying, for example, okay, let's start with 30m³ of fresh air per person per hour. What are your thoughts on this?
Dr Iyad: In a way, yes, but we also lack education. I think we need to aim for certified products, solutions, and systems in certain parts of the world. Most importantly, we need certified manpower and technicians who can operate and maintain these systems throughout the process to achieve sustainable performance. Just mandating a specific ventilation rate doesn't get the job done. We can go back to the drawing board, check the blueprints and reconfigure these ventilation rates, but what difference would it make if I don't have the education and the background for boots on the ground so that they can help me get the job done?
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Morten: How can we make healthy indoor air a global priority?
Dr Iyad: Urban and air quality governance is the name of the game. This will involve the industry leaders providing air quality monitoring systems accompanied by ventilation and filtration systems that are second to none and can ascend to the air quality heights. This is achieved by delivering innovations that are energy efficient, safe and pleasant, with the focus of all efforts on fresh and clean air. To do that, data collection will provide mechanisms to establish engines for air quality policies so the government can accompany these policies with incentive programmes, like tax credits or rebates. Banks can also get involved by, for example, providing interest-free loans. So, we all have a part to play and a role to share.
Eventually, we all need to live in healthy buildings, and we need that to be sustainable. However, we need to agree on the definition we must achieve together. Rival clean air definitions, different filter configurations, and arguing over how to achieve it will not propel air quality. I also invite research centres, Centres of Excellence, and universities to conduct more research on air quality, whether from a ventilation point of view or a heating and cooling point of view. I think it's been, for years, underfunded. We must bring air quality back to the spotlight and embed it as a pillar of sustainable urban development for cities to propel and attract people, prosperity, and investments.
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Morten: This allows me to reflect again on your three dimensions of healthy indoors. We have the technological perspective, the legislative perspective, and the ethical perspective. I would propose adding a fourth one, which is the communication perspective. To get it out there and raise awareness, we must communicate well, which is why we're also doing this. All these components should work together to achieve healthy indoor air and make it a fundamental pillar of the built environment.
Dr Iyad: I think you’re on to something. What's important is communicating it to the audience, who may or may not have the technical background. When the pandemic struck, our cities and cities in urban environments sought answers to air quality. But simultaneously, the pandemic forced us to have different air quality questions. And we went back to the books, looking for answers at a time when we should have been ready and capable of reacting and responding. As I said, we all agree on the need for change but differ on how change should occur. It is the role of industry leaders, like Systemair, to bring the message in a vivid manner so the audience can relate to it in a simplistic way. Today, we have the technology. Knowing the information and having a system that will respond to any IAQ variation would be the order of the day and the name of the game.