AM Technical Solutions (AM) Founder Tim Self is an entrepreneur and engineer by trade. When it became clear that there was a growing need for higher-quality breathing air in business and commercial settings, Tim went to work creating an industrial-grade air filtration solution. The result was the AIRBOX air filtration system that delivers a lifetime of clean air, pure and simple.
Before creating AIRBOX, Tim expected that breathing air quality would become a concern for major populations as people gained awareness about common airborne contaminants. He recognized there would be ensuing demand for an effective solution.
The recent availability of low-cost, easy-to-use air quality monitors for consumers eventually provided the general population with knowledge of the contaminants they were ingesting in indoor environments. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic brought this issue to the forefront and accelerated the public’s learning curve. Fortunately, AIRBOX air purifiers were already on the market to help solve this sudden public health crisis.
How Tim Self Leveraged AM Expertise to Create AIRBOX
For more than 26 years, AM has offered micro-contamination solutions to our clean manufacturing clients, including Clean Room and Clean Process Systems Design, Construction, and Certification. The knowledge, skills, and experience required to be a leader in this space translated directly into creating clean ventilation systems solutions. AIRBOX was extrapolated directly from these AM attributes.
Each AIRBOX air purifier is manufactured using the same cleanroom technology we utilize in projects for our clients. Understanding aerosol particle behavior and entrapment is critical to design a solution to remove particles from a given environment. Both require a great deal of experience in aerosol particle spectrometry.
Having a background in fluid dynamics is also necessary to design systems that are intended to control particles in a specific area of a room, e.g. the Breathing Zone. It’s also important to understand the relationships between static pressure, pressure drop, flow rates, and fan efficiency to develop the most volumetric efficient airflow.
AIRBOX Ready to Meet COVID-19 Challenges
One of the key features of the AIRBOX air purifiers is the use of certified HEPA filters. These specially-designed filters are critical to remove contaminants associated with the coronavirus. Given that AIRBOX products use high-quality certified HEPA and industrial grade antimicrobial filters, Tim Self and his team were confident that AIRBOX would be effective in removing the COVID-19 virus from air.
Coupled with the industrial quality of materials and construction, Tim was also certain that AIRBOX could surpass the physical operating demands of commercial applications, including 24/7 high volume operation, excessive handling, and ease of use. Knowing they had a solid “engine” for removing pathogens, the AIRBOX team focused their efforts on applications specific to removing pathogens from the Breathing Zone of occupied spaces.
Using ASHRAE Ventilation Standards as a basis, Tim and his team developed models for establishing “Safe Air Plans” for specific populated settings such as schools, healthcare, gyms, eating areas, and office spaces.
How AIRBOX Can Help Improve Air Quality Moving Forward
As a society, we all gained insight into the mechanisms associated with the spread of diseases in 2020. Specifically, how certain diseases are spread through respiratory aerosols and droplets.
Already, A&E design firms are changing ventilation design requirements for indoor environments. This will lead to changes in the primary elements of increased ventilation rates, air current directional control, and higher efficiency air filtration.
While there will be supplemental technologies such as UVGI for pathogen control, high-efficiency filtration will remain the primary element of control. AIRBOX is ready to meet this challenge by continuing to adapt application-specific products to provide highly-effective, cost-efficient solutions for maintaining safe breathing air in schools, homes, and workplaces.
For example, the AIRBOX team recently completed biologic testing in a “healthcare representative” setting to quantify pathogen reduction rates. Tim and his team will add these findings to their database to further validate the ventilation rates of their Safe Air Plans.
Additional steps include developing the ability to enable centralized monitoring and control of multiple units over Wi-Fi networks to support enterprise customers. The product development roadmap for AIRBOX includes Integrated HEPA Systems that will protect the integrity of centralized HVAC systems.
“Innovation will continue to be required to meet the latest demands for creating pure indoor air as people re-gather in larger numbers,” says Tim Self. “All of this adds up to needing to provide Safe Breathing Air in a way that allows people to be confident in their personal safety in work and social settings.”
– Find out more about the AIRBOX air filtration systems at AIRBOXAirPurifier.com. Find out how to purchase an air purifier for a business, school, hospital, or other location on the website.