air quality Archives

QleanAir cleans the air at Swedish warehouse

Posted on 1 September, 2022 by Keith McKinley

Health wholesaler Life Logistics constantly works to improve the working environment in its warehouse, and has been using air cleaners for a long time. It has now upgraded to QleanAir’s new FS 90 models because they are mobile, take up less space and make less noise.

Life Logistics is Sweden’s largest wholesaler within health products and supplies resellers with one of the Nordic countries’ broadest assortments. Life Logistics is responsible for the supply of goods to Life’s many stores and its e-commerce customers, but also to independent stores.

Within the Life Group, people are passionate about helping customers stay healthy naturally. It also protect its employees’ health by systematically improving the working environment when it comes to ventilation, air quality, noise, ergonomics, etc. At the warehouse, large amounts of corrugated board are handled during unpacking and packing, which generates a lot of troublesome dust. Therefore, ceiling-mounted air cleaners have long been used to improve the working environment for employees. In connection with a rebuild, they had to dismantle the air cleaners, and took the opportunity to expose their supplier at the time to competition.

QleanAir won the tender with two floor-standing QleanAir FS 90 units because they are mobile and easy to place close to the source. They are also smaller in size than the predecessor, about half the size, and quieter. Despite the difference in size and the fact that there are only two air cleaners compared to the previous three, the air quality is the same or even better.

“We prefer QleanAir’s air cleaners because they are more mobile, quieter and smaller,” says Conny Löwenmark, operations manager at Life Logistics.

Before the new units were delivered, the warehouse was without an air cleaner for two months. This made it harder to breathe and the warehouse became so dirty it had to be cleaned all the time. Now weekly cleaning is sufficient and the air quality is good.

“It is very easy to work with QleanAir. We have a service agreement which means that a service technician from QleanAir changes the filters and checks the air a couple of times a year,” concludes Löwenmark. “Otherwise, we don’t notice the air cleaners.”

Life Logistics continues to work with the working environment. In the next step, focus will be on the noise levels in the warehouse. All so that the employees have the best workplace possible.

Study reveals good air quality around Port of Tyne

Posted on 20 July, 2021 by Keith McKinley

Air quality around the Port of Tyne is “good” and well within the required national standards, an independent inventory of pollutant gas emissions has concluded.

The study, conducted by highly regarded air quality expert Ove Arup and Partners, has also verified that Port-related activity accounts for just 1-2% of total air pollutant concentrations and that levels can be officially classified as ‘minor’ when compared to existing background concentrations of air pollutants.

Tyne 2050 and ongoing green goals

Although emissions released to air as a result of the Port’s activities are already well below statutory requirements, the Port of Tyne will be continuing with its ongoing efforts to further improve air quality within the Tyne estuary. All port operations are on track become fully Net Zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) by 2030 and the programme to replace gas oil-fired plant equipment with clean energy, electric equivalents, is well underway.

To encourage the early adoption of green shipping technology among its customer base, the Port of Tyne is evaluating the potential of a “Green Ship” Tariff. This would see the cost of using the Port’s facilities decrease for vessels powered by clean energy.

The final transition to ‘All-Electric Port’ is expected by 2040 and this will include the provision of shore-based power sources for visiting vessels. In addition to these goals, the Port is also keen to become a test bed for clean energy technology and further environmental impact automation.

“These results are extremely pleasing and although emissions are already low, we expect them to further decrease as we progress towards the Port’s 2050 goals,” says Steven Clapperton, Maritime Director and Harbour Master at the Port of Tyne.

“As always, our intention is to be completely open and transparent about efforts to improve air quality and to ensure that the highest levels of protection for people living and working in and around port areas are maintained. This assessment clearly demonstrates the Port of Tyne’s commitment to air quality and the considerable progress we have made towards improving quality of life for everyone within the wider Tyne Estuary.”

Scope of the Air Quality Strategy Study

The facilities used and commercial activities undertaken by the Port of Tyne which were monitored in the study included:
Vessel movements within the statutory harbour area and at berth
Non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) including cranes, tugs, wheel loaders etc on the port estate
Vehicle imports and exports on the Port’s North (VAG) and South (Nissan) estates
Vehicles using the Port of Tyne internal road network
Loading and unloading of Roll-on/Roll-off (RoRo) ferries
Storage and handling of wood pellets
Rail operations and locomotives for the transporting of wood pellets from the Port of Tyne
The International Passenger Terminal (IPT)

Air pollutants measured during the study were CO2, SO2, NO2, Non Methane Volatile Organic Compounds (NMVC) and Particulate Matter (PM).

The monitored Port of Tyne statutory harbour area stretches from one mile beyond the piers at Tynemouth, to the tidal limit at Wylam, 17 miles inland to the West.

The study involved an impact assessment utilising complex atmospheric dispersion modelling to predict pollutant concentrations at identified sensitive receptors and their compliance with standards defined within the National Air Quality Regulations.

All ports in the UK with bulk cargo throughput in excess of one million tonnes per annum are required to develop an air quality strategy for their designated statutory areas in line with the Department for Transport’s Port Air Quality Strategy guidance. This requirement involves compiling an inventory of relevant emissions for the baseline year (which the Port of Tyne declared to be 2017) and this includes emissions from port related activities on land as well as emissions from all vessels visiting the Tyne in 2017.

Download a copy of the report here

Clean Air System via Fans Explained

Posted on 1 December, 2020 by Keith McKinley

Ions are particles that carry an electrical charge as a result of induced energy to the particle that has caused it to gain an electron, resulting in a negative charge, or to lose an electron, resulting in a positive charge. Ions can exist in all mediums; in the air, they are specifically referred to as positive air ions (PAI) or negative air ions (NAI), depending on their charge. Air ions are able to follow airflows to be distributed but their lifespan (effectively, the time before they find something to stick to) is less than 60 seconds in most environments. This makes it imperative to generate air ions as close to the occupied breathing zone as possible.

Big Ass Fans’ Clean Air System (CAS) products generate ions using needlepoint bi-polar ionization (NBPI) modules. These modules use very little electrical power (less than 1 watt) and are able to generate more ions with elevated air speed across the module needle points, making them a perfect match for integration on the worlds’ best ceiling and directional fans. A further advantage of needlepoint bi-polar ionization is its inherent safety for occupants. No ozone is generated by BAF NBPI products and there are no known negative impacts of occupant exposure to positive or negative air ions – some occupants even report improved mood.

Critically, air ions have a germicidal effect on microbial organisms that are in the air and on surfaces exposed to the ion-rich air. The mechanism of inactivation can be physical, as air ions can cluster to a microbe until its weight is increased to the point where it falls out of the breathable air zone. The mechanism can also be biological, where the surface proteins that microbial pathogens use to bind to target cells are disrupted, preventing the pathogen from infecting other cells. The imparted charge differential of the air ions can also cause a breach in the cell membrane, resulting in oxidation and inactivation of the pathogen’s ability to replicate and further infect new cells.

Using air ions from BAF CAS via these mechanisms has been proven in a third-party laboratory to rapidly reduce the effective concentration of a wide variety of microbes. The ion concentration level present in the target area is also important. Figure 2 shows the response of SARS-CoV-2 in the presence of 10, 40, and 150 thousand air ions per cc. As evident, higher concentrations of ions increase the rates of inactivation, but there is a point of diminishing returns at very high (above 100,000 ions per cc) levels. As such, BAF believes the minimum air ion concentration for a germicidal effect to be around 10,000 ions per cc, with optimal levels being around 40,000 ions per cc. This testing response closely follows the anticipated target theory collision model – that the rate of collisions (inactivations in the context of air ions and pathogens) is proportional to the number of free targets (pathogens) and colliders (air ions) such that inactivation rates are highest initially and increase with larger concentrations of both elements.

Tyne 2050 and ongoing green goals

Scope of the Air Quality Strategy Study

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