ARE Labs can provide a variety of custom test setup to perform bioaerosol decontamination efficacy testing.  Whether testing your system in a room environment under recirculatory condition or determination of single pass decontamination efficacy against a variety of vegetative bacteria, viruses, bacteria and mold spores, or common allergens (pollen, dander, fibers, etc.).

We can construct any aerosol challenge system required for your device to provide true real-world decontamination efficacy data under a wide variety of operating conditions and with a multitude of biological organisms including BSL3 surrogates.

TransformAir  asked ARE Labs to provide testing and engineering support for their novel decontamination system and for efficacy testing in support for FDA 510(k) testing requirements.  The TransformAir Unit is designed for purifying HVAC air of airborne contaminates including potentially infectious bioaerosols.  The unit are designed for single pass air flow purification and have built in unidirectional air blowers for air flow control, and a proprietary catalytic coated filters and UV light sources for the capture and destruction of bio-aerosols using hydroxyl radicals.  Biological aerosol decontamination testing was conducted in our Aerosol Testing Chamber (ATC).  The ATC is designed for evaluating biological and chemical generation, sampling, detection and decontamination systems in a large scale environment.  The test setup for this system is unique in the fact that the ATC serves as the secondary aerosol containment system for the primary challenge system.  The challenge system is kept at a slightly negative pressure relative to the ATC.  The primary challenge system is a push-pull design with multiple sampling ports upstream and downstream, sampling ports for real-time particle concentration and monitoring via a TSI Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS).

“Aerosol Science is our Specialty”

Biological Aerosol Decontamination Testing

Testing is being conducted against a range of vegetative bacteria, viruses and spore forming organisms in support for FDA 510(k) requirements.  ARE Labs designed and constructed a bioaerosol generation, delivery, and sampling system to accurately evaluate the efficacy of the TransformAir’s ability to reducing viable bioaerosol contaminants in an HVAC environment.  Bioaerosols were generated using jet nebulizers, custom dry aerosol generators.  Aerosol samplers were collected simultaneously upstream and downstream of the test unit for viable aerosol challenge concentration and viable bioaerosol filter penetration measurements.   Samples were serial diluted and plated for viable cfu collection and test unit efficiency calculations in the reduction of viable bioaerosols. Aerosol particle size distribution measurements were taken at upstream and downstream locations of the test units in real time during testing for concentration and particle size comparison using an aerodynamic particle sizer (APS).

ARE Labs specializes in custom engineering and testing projects.  We would be honored to help you achieve your specific engineering and biological aerosol decontamination testing goals for Testing.