EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON HEATING HEPA BY FAR INFRARED RADIATION

摘要

Due to spreading of the SARS and other respiration illnesses, people pay more and more attention to airborne microorganism contaminants. It is a great challenge to control the microorganisms' reproduction, growth and transmitting indoor. High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter is a suitable device to catch the airborne microorganism particles in environmental air. In this study, a HEPA filter was combined with several mini far infrared radiation heating panels, it doesn't only catch airborne microorganism particles but also kill them with high temperature in the HEPA filter media. The far infrared radiation panels heat HEPA filter media at the downstream face of HEPA filter. In the experiment, a digital thermometer system, which measurement error is 0.1°C, is used to measure the temperatures of the HEPA filter's front and back surfaces. An airborne particle counter is used to measure the particle concentration in upstream and downstream for calculating the efficiency of HEPA filter. The result shows there are no visible changes in HEPA filter's efficiency with radiation heating the HEPA filter media or not, it proves there is no damage when heating HEPA filter. Furthermore, airborne microorganism can be killed in a limit experimental temperature after improving the HEPA filter media temperature by radiation heating.