Attempt to improve indoor air quality in computer laboratories

Abstract

Low indoor air quality (IAQ) can impact occupants’ health and lead to poor productivity or low academic performance. Therefore the provision of good IAQ in classrooms and laboratories is very important. This paper presents the results of the investigation devoted to the quality of indoor air in computer laboratories of selected Polish high schools. Six schools in a town with a population of 200 000 inhabitants were involved in the investigations. The participating school buildings were built between 1975 and 1991 and had gravity ventilation systems. The variability of basic IAQ parameters, i.e., temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide level, was analyzed and the assessment of the computer laboratories in terms of microbiological purity was performed. The outcomes confirmed the low quality of the indoor air in these buildings. Certain modifications aimed at improving IAQ were proposed during the investigations. Two solutions were implemented. The first solution involved a twofold increase in the volume of supply air from 90 m3/h to 180 m3/h. The other modification consisted in installing indoor air cleaning devices based on the radiant catalytic ionization technology (RCI). The results of this study indicate that the proposed solution offers the potential to improve IAQ within computer labs.