1.Background
The Third Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University (formerly the Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhongshan Medical University), located at the Tianhe District, Guangzhou, Guangdong, was founded in 1971. It is a “Grade-III & Class-A” comprehensive hospital directly under the Ministry of Health, where the hepatology is the leading department.
Figure 1. The Third Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University
2. Problems
The Endoscopy Center is responsible for cleaning and disinfecting the health facilities and endoscopy. A great amount of disinfector and detergent will be used during the cleaning and disinfecting process. However, the odor of disinfector and detergent only could be exhausted by the current exhaust fan and the natural ventilation, which can not fundamentally solve the problem where the odor still spreads to other corridors and rooms at Endoscopy Center.
Hospital leaders paid high attention to the staff’s health and urgently hoped to improve the working environment, so that the front-line staff won’t be harmed by harmless and VOCs.
A great amount of glutaraldehyde solution, ethanol solution and other specialized detergents are used at the cleaning and disinfecting process. These solutions will release harmful VOCs, such as glutaraldehyde and ethanol. These kinds of harmful air were accumulated at the rooms and spread to other rooms and areas via original ventilation system and natural ventilation, which causes bad influence to doctor’s and patient’s health.
Staff and patient had suffered occupational disease such kind of unnecessary injuries and occupational diseases due to not enough attention to the working environment and air quality, which had a bad influence to social, economic and health development.
The Third Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University decided to adopt NCCO Air Treatment Technology due to the effective air purification capacity of NCCO Air Purification Technology.
3.Air Purification Project
Air Purification Project at Offices and Laboratory
The main air pollutants at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room are from the Endoscopy Disinfection and Washing Machine and the washing tables used for first wash,enzyme wash, second wash and the final wash. A great amount of glutaraldehyde, ethyl alcohol, bio-enzyme and other detergents are used at disinfecting and washing process. Hospital used the simple method of opening window to reduce air pollutants, which is unable to effectively remove the air pollutants, but spreads the harmful VOCs to other floors.
The air pollutants at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room would spread to the corridor and other rooms via the natural ventilation when the room windows are open. The red arrows shown at Figure 2 indicate the possible spreading direction.
RHT recommended to close windows and install Duct Mount Air Treatment Unit (Model No.: RA-801) and Ceiling Type Air Treatment Unit (Model No.: EC400) at the ceiling above the Endoscopy Disinfection and Washing Machine and the washing tables (The installation layout shown at Figure 3), which made the Room with negative pressure, so that the polluted air at Room won’t spread out even the air at corridor and other area are flowing to room. In the meantime, make an innocent treatment to the air exhausted from the Room, so that the air pollutants at Room can be timely treated and won’t influence staff’s health. The internal circulation mechanism of EC400 can reduce the loss of cooled air, which has significant influence to the energy conservation of air conditioning system. The installation of air curtain can isolate the indoor air and outdoor air to prevent outdoor air pollutants from getting in.
Figure 3. NCCO Air Treatment Unit Layout at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room
Figure 4. NCCO Air Treatment Unit Installation Image at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room
Ceiling Type NCCO Air Treatment Unit operates the internal circulation at the Room, where instantly treats polluted air into clean air. (At the Figure 5, the red arrow indicates the polluted air, the green arrows indicates the clean air after air treatment). The Duct Mount NCCO Air Treatment Unit (RA-801) will exhaust the polluted air after air treatment.
Figure 5. Airflow Effect after Installation of Air Treatment Unit at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room
Figure 6. Airflow Effect after Installation of Air Curtain at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room
Figure 7. Lateral View of Airflow Effect after Installation of Air Curtain at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room
Figure 8. EC400 Installation Real Shot
Figure 9. Real Shot of EC400 Installation at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room
Figure 10. Air Curtain Installation Location
4.Effect
RHT entrusted the domestic third-party testing organization to test the effect of the engineering project. The testing result showed than NCCO Air Treatment Unit is able to effectively remove TVOC with the purification rate of 73 % on average in a long time, which has greatly improved the air quality at Endoscopy Disinfecting and Washing Room and protected the medical staff’s health.