TITLE:
Analysis of Virus Sanitization Alternatives and Optimization of a Thermal Air Purifier for SARS-CoV-2
AUTHORS:
Enrique Eduardo Tarifa, Liza Ainalen Dosso, Carlos Román Vera
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Economizer, Modelling, Thermal Sterilization
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.12 No.7,
July
14,
2022
ABSTRACT: Air sanitization acquired renewed interest during
the COVID-19 outbreak, especially in hospital rooms and intensive care units. In this
work, mathematical analysis was done of the convenience of sanitizing the air
of whole rooms or personalized isolation tents. Centralized air sanitization
was found to have low effectiveness due to three reasons: 1) the constant virus
emission from patients; 2) the practical upper limits of air recycle flowrates;
3) the low value of the minimum infective dose of SARS-CoV-2. Personalized air sanitization was the best option. Virus inactivation
by thermal effect was then revisited, and a steady-state model was formulated
for an efficient and personalized thermal sterilizer. An analytical solution
was obtained for temperature and virus concentration in different parts of the
sterilizer. Cell temperature was found to be the main variable for
sterilization due to the Arrhenius-like form of the kinetic constant of virus
deactivation. An objective cost function was written and subjected to conditions of
minimum patient ventilation rate and minimum virus removal effectiveness.
Numerical optimization gave an optimal design with the intrinsic advantages of
thermal sanitization, i.e., simplicity, robustness,
minimum maintenance and high sanitization rate.