CleanAIR

Innovation: CleanAIR upgrades the functionality of older air-conditioning (AC) systems, allowing them to both clean the air and disinfect surfaces in a building. A supplemental smart control allows users to choose between a range of cleaning and disinfection strategies. For instance, this smart AC can run on cleaning mode during the day and a disinfectant mode at night, and then removing any overrun during an additional air-cleaning cycle. Expected Results: Airborne droplets that we expel when we breathe, talk, cough or sneeze are a key transmission route of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as other infectious diseases. However, older air-conditioning systems are generally not designed to clean the air in any way. By upgrading the functionality of older AC-systems to both clean the air inside a building and safely disinfect surfaces, CleanAIR is designed to make indoor environments safer and greatly reduce the transmission of infectious diseases such as COVID-19.