Ren Chen, Haghighat Fariborz, Feng Zhuangbo, Kumar Prashant, Cao Shi-Jie
School of Architecture, Southeast University, 2 Sipailou, Nanjing, 210096 China.
Energy and Environment Group, Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, H3G 1M8 Canada.
Build Simul. 2023;16(5):749-764. doi: 10.1007/s12273-022-0959-z. Epub 2022 Dec 2.
Infectious diseases (e.g., coronavirus disease 2019) dramatically impact human life, economy and social development. Exploring the low-cost and energy-saving approaches is essential in removing infectious virus particles from indoors, such as in classrooms. The application of air purification devices, such as negative ion generators (ionizers), gains popularity because of the favorable removal capacity for particles and the low operation cost. However, small and portable ionizers have potential disadvantages in the removal efficiency owing to the limited horizontal diffusion of negative ions. This study aims to investigate the layout strategy (number and location) of ionizers based on the energy-efficient natural ventilation in the classroom to improve removal efficiency (negative ions to particles) and decrease infection risk. Three infected students were considered in the classroom. The simulations of negative ion and particle concentrations were performed and validated by the experiment. Results showed that as the number of ionizers was 4 and 5, the removal performance was largely improved by combining ionizer with natural ventilation. Compared with the scenario without an ionizer, the scenario with 5 ionizers largely increased the average removal efficiency from around 20% to 85% and decreased the average infection risk by 23%. The setup with 5 ionizers placed upstream of the classroom was determined as the optimal layout strategy, particularly when the location and number of the infected students were unknown. This work can provide a guideline for applying ionizers to public buildings when natural ventilation is used.
the Appendix is available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s12273-022-0959-z.
传染病（如2019冠状病毒病）对人类生活、经济和社会发展产生了巨大影响。探索低成本、节能的方法对于从室内（如教室）去除传染性病毒颗粒至关重要。空气净化设备的应用，如负离子发生器（离子器），因其对颗粒的良好去除能力和低运行成本而受到欢迎。然而，小型便携式离子器由于负离子水平扩散有限，在去除效率方面存在潜在劣势。本研究旨在基于教室中节能的自然通风来研究离子器的布局策略（数量和位置），以提高去除效率（负离子对颗粒）并降低感染风险。在教室中考虑了三名受感染的学生。对负离子和颗粒浓度进行了模拟，并通过实验进行了验证。结果表明，当离子器数量为4和5时，将离子器与自然通风相结合，去除性能有了很大提高。与没有离子器的情况相比，有5个离子器的情况将平均去除效率从约20%大幅提高到85%，并将平均感染风险降低了23%。将5个离子器放置在教室上游的设置被确定为最佳布局策略，特别是当受感染学生的位置和数量未知时。这项工作可为在使用自然通风时将离子器应用于公共建筑提供指导。
电子补充材料ESM：附录可在本文的在线版本中获取，链接为10.1007/s12273-022-0959-z。
