Proposing a corona-discharge assisted pleated air filtration and sterilization (CAFS) system to efficiently disinfect virus in fibrous fibrous-medium and create safe indoor environment

Abstract

The corona discharge-generated ion-assisted fibrous filter is proposed to simultaneously disinfect virus deposited in fibrous-medium. In order to achieve fast and reliable design of the corona-discharge assisted pleated air filtration and sterilization (CAFS) system, the present study develops a numerical strategy to simulate the corona discharge phenomenon in pleat filter and evaluate the ion disinfection effect. Based on simulated results, the ESR index (effective surface area of fibrous-medium) can be used to obtain the percentage of fully disinfected fibrous-medium. For fibrous air filters with complex pleat geometries, increasing the number of discharge wires (with an applied voltage of 6.8 kV) inside the pleat channels can effectively enhance the disinfection performance and achieve an ESR value of 100 %. Compared with a conventional ventilated ion-spray enhanced air filtration system, the newly proposed CAFS can reduce energy consumption by 66.7 % without decreasing the ion dose applied to the fibrous-medium or compromising the ion-induced disinfection effect. Based on the numerical results, we further propose an upgraded CAFS equipped with movable discharge wires. Overall, the proposed CAFS and the associated numerical design strategy can enable safe and effective operation for indoor virus control.