CECAM facility aims to improve indoor air quality

Funded by the EPSRC, the CECAM project will run until 2025 with experiments estimated to begin at the facility in late 2022. It aims to address knowledge gaps in the role that indoor environments play in human health and infection transmission.

Through a multi-user research environment, the team hopes to develop an effective space for experiments that could pave the way for new engineering solutions and enhanced building design, leading to improved environmental air quality in every sector of society.

Dr Louise Fletcher, lecturer in Environmental Engineering at Leeds University told The Engineer that although there are chambers available to measure ventilation and comfort parameters, carrying out microbial experiments is more challenging due to safety considerations.

“We aim to develop a facility that can be used flexibly to investigate a range of different aspects, from the fundamental behaviour of microorganisms in indoor environments — aerosolisation, transportation, deposition, survival — through to very practical studies to test the performance of air cleaning devices,” Fletcher said.