Mitigation of airborne transmission of COVID virus between occupants in a confined room with an air purifier

Abstract

This study evaluated the effect of ventilation rate and air supply angle of an air purifier using computational fluid dynamics to determine the dispersion of airborne COVID virus exhaled by an infected person. The risk of infection for an occupant was determined based on the virus concentration in the active area and accumulated particle dose within the breathing zone by varying the ventilation parameters. The air purifier was found to provide a local dilution and would block the development of an expiratory jet for a short time to reduce transmission risk. Compared to the case without an air purifier, the maximum reductions were 94.27% in the accumulated dose and 53.2% in the particle count concentration. In the breathing area, the larger air supply angle (90° > 60° > 30°) is better when the ventilation rate was 27.0 m³/h and 40.5 m³/h. Otherwise, 60° air supply angle is preferable where the ventilation rate was 54.0 m³/h. Assessing the results with the grey relational analysis revealed that the relational degree for particle count concentration was greater by varying the ventilation rate than by varying the air supply angle. However, the relational degree according to the accumulated dose was greater by varying the air supply angle than by increasing the ventilation rate. These findings may provide an important control strategy to effectively mitigate the risk of infection in a confined room by using an air purifier.