Novel thermal treatment model to decontaminate airborne SARS Cov-2 virus for residential and commercial buildings

Abstract

In the COVID-19 pandemic, control of airborne virus transmission is exceptionally challenging as it is attached to suspended particles in the air and stays for an extended time. Air contaminated with airborne viruses holds a substantial risk for household transmission. In this study, a novel thermal treatment system is modeled based on porous heating for the decontamination of airborne SARS-Cov-2. The model includes an air heating domain, insulated chamber, buffer tank and heat exchanger. The airborne SARS-Cov-2 is decontaminated when passing through a porous heat pipe and the insulated chamber for an anticipated dwelling period of more than 5 min at 105°C and further stored in a buffer tank for natural cooling. The obligatory decontaminated air is allowed in the residential space under ambient conditions passing through a heat exchanger. The numerical investigation of the porous pipe model at different L/D ratios with altered porosities aims to establish the best-performing porous domain. Besides this, the buffer tank is intended to maintain buffer storage of the treated air and significant natural cooling before passing to the heat exchanger. A solar PV module is proposed to meet the prerequisite energy requirements of the equipped devices.