School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia.
School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Nov;29(53):80137-80160. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-23407-9. Epub 2022 Oct 4.
An indoor environment in a hospital building requires a high indoor air quality (IAQ) to overcome patients' risks of getting wound infections without interrupting the recovery process. However, several problems arose in obtaining a satisfactory IAQ, such as poor ventilation design strategies, insufficient air exchange, improper medical equipment placement and high door opening frequency. This paper presents an overview of various methods used for assessing the IAQ in hospital facilities, especially in an operating room, isolation room, anteroom, postoperative room, inpatient room and dentistry room. This review shows that both experimental and numerical methods demonstrated their advantages in the IAQ assessment. It was revealed that both airflow and particle tracking models could result in different particle dispersion predictions. The model selection should depend on the compatibility of the simulated result with the experimental measurement data. The primary and secondary forces affecting the characteristics of particle dispersion were also discussed in detail. The main contributing forces to the trajectory characteristics of a particle could be attributed to the gravitational force and drag force regardless of particle size. Meanwhile, the additional forces could be considered when there involves temperature gradient, intense light source, submicron particle, etc. The particle size concerned in a healthcare facility should be less than 20 μm as this particle size range showed a closer relationship with the virus load and a higher tendency to remain airborne. Also, further research opportunities that reflect a more realistic approach and improvement in the current assessment approach were proposed.
医院建筑的室内环境需要高室内空气质量 (IAQ),以克服患者伤口感染的风险,同时不中断康复过程。然而,在获得令人满意的室内空气质量方面存在一些问题,例如通风设计策略不佳、空气交换不足、医疗设备放置不当和门频繁打开。本文介绍了用于评估医院设施室内空气质量的各种方法,特别是在手术室、隔离室、前厅、术后室、住院病房和牙科室。综述表明,实验和数值方法都在室内空气质量评估中展示了各自的优势。结果表明,气流和粒子追踪模型都可能导致不同的粒子扩散预测。模型选择应取决于模拟结果与实验测量数据的兼容性。还详细讨论了影响粒子扩散特性的主要和次要力。影响粒子轨迹特征的主要力可以归因于重力和阻力,而与粒子大小无关。同时,当存在温度梯度、强光源、亚微米粒子等时,可以考虑其他力。医疗保健设施中涉及的粒子大小应小于 20μm,因为该粒子大小范围与病毒载量的关系更密切,并且更有可能保持在空气中。此外,还提出了进一步研究的机会,以反映更现实的方法和改进当前评估方法。