diy

Efficacy of Do-It-Yourself Air Filtration Units in Reducing Exposure to Simulated Respiratory Aerosols

Many respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, can be spread by aerosols expelled by infected people when they cough, talk, sing, or exhale. Exposure to these aerosols indoors can be reduced by portable air filtration units (air cleaners). Homemade or Do-It-Yourself (DIY) air filtration units are a popular alternative to commercially produced devices, but performance data is limited. Our study used a speaker-audience model to examine the efficacy of two popular types of DIY air filtration units, the Corsi-Rosenthal cube and a modified Ford air filtration unit, in reducing exposure to simulated respiratory aerosols within a mock classroom. Experiments were conducted using four breathing simulators at different locations in the room, one acting as the respiratory aerosol source and three as recipients.

Optical particle spectrometers monitored simulated respiratory aerosol particles (0.3–3 μm) as they dispersed throughout the room. Using two DIY cubes (in the front and back of the room) increased the air change rate as much as 12.4 over room ventilation, depending on filter thickness and fan airflow. Using multiple linear regression, each unit increase of air change reduced exposure by 10%. Increasing the number of filters, filter thickness, and fan airflow significantly enhanced the air change rate, which resulted in exposure reductions of up to 73%. Our results show DIY air filtration units can be an effective means of reducing aerosol exposure. However, they also show performance of DIY units can vary considerably depending upon their design, construction, and positioning, and users should be mindful of these limitations.

Read More @ ScienceDirect

UConn Researchers Come to Triangle to Test Air Filters that Could Reduce COVID-19 Particles

MORRISVILLE, NC – The University of Connecticut is spending a week at the Environmental Protection Agency campus at the Research Triangle Park to test the efficacy of the Corsi-Rosenthal air filter in reducing Covid particles from the air. From UConn, Marina Creed is leading the all-women group of researchers to test the filter in a controlled setting for the first time.

“We saw that the concentrations of particles were reduced quickly in the chamber, and we’re looking forward to getting the microbiology results that will be out in the coming weeks,” said Creed.

Creed’s formally trained as a nurse practitioner, and she says that it’s her experience working during the coronavirus pandemic that prompted her into action. She formed the multi-disciplinary Indoor Air Quality Initiative at UConn to test the low-cost, do-it-yourself Corsi-Rosenthal air filters. Team members Dr. Kristina Wagstrom and Dr. Misti Levy Zamora joined Creed to work with the EPA lab for the week.

Read More @ CBS17.com

UConn students built an air purifier — Here’s how they did it

A fifth-grade class at Noah Webster MicroSociety Magnet School will be building do-it-yourself air filters out of furnace filters, a box fan and its box. The finished product will be taken to the Whitehouse in Washington D.C. to be presented by Marina A. Creed, a family nurse practitioner, UConn Health. One was presented to the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the White House on Sept. 9, 2022.

Take four air filters, like you use in your furnace. Tape them together so they form a cube.

Buy a box fan of the same size — 20 by 20 inches — and attach it to the top of the cube. Don’t throw away the box but use one side of it as the bottom of the cube, the other on top of the fan with a hole cut in the round shape of turning fan blades.

Read More at The Hartford Courant

DIY Air Filtration Systems Help Clear The Air in Connecticut Public Schools

Governor Lamont PhotoGov. Ned Lamont announced last week that his administration will release $150 million to help upgrade heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in Connecticut public schools to improve air filtration.

But medical staff and scientific researchers working on the University of Connecticut’s Indoor Air Quality Initiative say schools can improve the quality of their air with a $64 purchase at their local hardware store.

The program – led by Marina Creed, a nurse practitioner at the UConn Health Comprehensive MS Center – has already provided 200 so-called ‘Corsi-Rosenthal boxes’ to Coventry public schools, 100 to elementary school cafeterias in West Hartford, 10 at the Hartford Public Library and more at the South Park Inn Shelter in Hartford.

Read More @ CT News Junkie

White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy Recognizes UConn’s Indoor Air Quality Initiative Fighting COVID-19

Story originally published on UConn Today

Office of Science and Technology Policy group photo with air purifier

UConn Health nurse practitioner Marina Creed’s University of Connecticut cross-campus do-it-yourself indoor air purifier project continues to gain momentum — all the way to the White House.

Creed’s patients in UConn Health’s Multiple Sclerosis Center are among the more vulnerable to severe illness from COVID-19. Motivated by her role as both a clinician and a parent, last year she initiated a cross-campus public health initiative to get what are known as “Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes” into public school classrooms.

The boxes are an uncomplicated combination of easily obtained supplies that can be assembled in minutes. The components — a box fan, pleated air filter panels, cardboard and duct tape — add up to less than it costs to travel to Washington, D.C., where Creed presented members of the Biden administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) a DIY air purifier by the UConn team and Hartford school children.

On September 9 she and UConn School of Engineering’s Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Kristina Wagstrom visited a fifth-grade science class at Hartford’s Noah Webster Microsociety Magnet School, where they presented a STEM lesson that included the assembly of two DIY purifiers.

One, decorated in the school’s color, red, stayed in the classroom; the other, decorated as “Air Force One” and signed by the class, would be on its way to the White House the next day.

“It was an incredible opportunity for our team to showcase this important intervention made by Hartford public school students to the Office of Science and Technology Policy and gift ‘Air Force One’ to the team within the executive office of the president,” Creed says. “It was wonderful to see the children’s STEM lesson come to life. The unit is inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and we hope it will make its way into the West Wing for the president and first lady to appreciate.”

The DIY air filtration kits have been shown to be comparable to manufactured portable HEPA filters.

“It was great to see how excited the students were to work on something that would have real impact,” Wagstrom says.

Creed says their UConn team’s research includes using state-of-the-art cloud-based air quality monitoring sensors to capture critical data showing the intervention’s effectiveness in improving indoor air quality in real-world settings. The sensors, called MODULAIR-PM, are provided by Quant-AQ, an air quality startup in Somerville, Massachusetts.

“The evidence is clear – clean indoor air keeps students healthier and happier. We are excited to learn more about how these students put this evidence into action to benefit their community,” said Dr. Erica Kimmerling, Senior Advisor for Public Engagement at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “The ‘Air Force One’ air filter will not only help provide clean air to the staff at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy but it will be a great conversation starter to help spread the word about the ways people can improve indoor air quality.”

Creed was honored to be gifting the device to the White House OSTP alongside a major advocate of the DIY Corsi-Rosenthal intervention, Kimberly Prather, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at University of California San Diego (UCSD) and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Members of President Biden’s OSTP accepting the gift were Kimmerling, Dr. Georgia Lagoudas, senior advisor for biotechnology and biodefense, and Dr. Stephanie Guerra, assistant director for national security and biodefense.

In the spring, the Office of Science and Technology Policy held a webinar titled “Clear the Air of COVID-19.” Creed emailed the office to explain her indoor air filtration project, and in reply received an invitation to give a 30-minute briefing. As a capstone to the briefing, Creed, whose hometown is Washington, D.C., offered to bring a box made in the community by school children. The response to that was an invitation for a formal delivery to the White House.

“I was humbled that our work is being noticed at the federal level, and I am eager that our project will result in widespread improvements in public health through low-technology, low-cost, energy-efficient STEM projects that fifth grade school children can do,” Creed says. “It was heartwarming to know that a private citizen like myself can take an idea inspired by direct patient care and continue to push for the fruition of the vision that I have had, which is that these should be in every classroom in the state of Connecticut, if not throughout the country. It felt great to know that there’s federal support behind this initiative that we are working on.”

Support isn’t only coming from the federal government. In August the UConn Foundation announced a $300,000 grant funded through cryptocurrency from Balvi, an investment and direct giving fund established by Vitalik Buterin, the co-creator of Ethereum, to back the Indoor Air Quality Initiative. In May, Creed was recognized with one of UConn’s 2022 Provost’s Awards for Excellence in Community Engaged Scholarship.

The filtration systems are named for their creators, Richard Corsi, dean of engineering at the University of California-Davis, and Jim Rosenthal, CEO of Texas-based company Tex-Air Filters. Since last year Creed has been working to get them into Connecticut schools, and to teach students how to make them as part of a science and health lesson.

The students who helped create ‘Air Force One’ at the Webster Magnet School were impressed.

“We made an air filter that can help take away the germs and bacteria, and it’s really useful because a lot of kids got COVID now and earlier in the year,” says Elijah Ruiz, 10, of New Britain.

“It’s really cool that you can just get a few items that only cost a couple of dollars and make something that can make such a difference,” says Mia Lee, 10, of Manchester.

“It’s something that could be life-changing for everybody, and it can cure a lot of diseases, like COVID,” says Nayeli Rockwell, 10, of East Hartford.

What about the idea that something they helped make and put their names on would be going to the White House?

“Out of this world,” Nayeli says.

“That’s crazy,” Elijah says.

“It’s really, really cool, because Joe Biden is our president,” Mia says.

The Indoor Air Quality Initiative’s UConn cross-campus collaborators include: UConn Health and its Comprehensive Multiple Sclerosis Center, UConn School of Medicine and its Department of Public Health Sciences, UConn School of Engineering, UConn School of Nursing, Connecticut Area Health Education Center Network (CT AHEC), and the UConn Neag School of Education.

A Viral Sensation

DIY air filterWhen Dr. Richard Corsi floated an idea on Twitter for a highly effective, inexpensive, DIY air purifier to help lower the risk of Covid, his light-bulb moment went viral in the best possible way. Now many of America’s top scientists—and even the White House—are touting the invention, and people all over the planet are thinking inside the box.

T​​his story started, as so many do, with something small. In this case, magnitudes smaller than the period at the end of this sentence—a tiny droplet carrying the SARS CoV-2 virus.

It all began on Jan. 20, 2020, when environmental engineer and air quality expert Dr. Richard Corsi, the man at the center of this particular story, tweeted out a BBC article about a “new virus in China” that by that point had led to only two confirmed deaths. But Corsi could read between the lines and commented on the news with these five prescient words: “This deserves the world’s attention.”

By February, concerned that the virus could be airborne, Corsi dropped his routine of going to the gym six days a week and stopped taking public transportation.

The story got bigger from there—much bigger.

A lifelong academic specializing in air quality, Corsi was especially concerned about the ability of cash-strapped schools to protect their students and faculty. In July, as students prepared to return to school, his concern grew considerably, and he tweeted: “Public K-12 schools serve as a place to work or learn for more than 15% of the total population of the United States each year. IMHO, they are THE critical ‘business’ to watch during re-opening in the fall. I’ve worked w/ many school districts and know how resource-constrained they are and, in many cases, strained in terms of facilities staff. This gives me gr8 concern. If not done right the educational, health & econ impacts could be devastation on top of current devastation.”

Read More @ Sactown Magazine

UConn Officials Make Indoor Air Cleaners to Stop Spread of Covid-19 in Classrooms

three people holding air purifiers

Health officials at the University of Connecticut made indoor air cleaners in an effort to stop the spread of Covid-19 in classrooms.

With just a box fan, high-quality air filters, cardboard and duct tape, they assembled 100 boxes which will go in cafeterias in West Hartford schools.

Read More @ NBC Connecticut