1. Scope

Keywords

Rationale

With the rise of awareness of the importance of indoor air quality because of the global COVID-19 pandemic and recent forest fires, there is a growing use of a range of air cleaning technologies. A major recommendation of 2022 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report on “Why Indoor Chemistry Matters” is that air cleaning “testing approaches need to be developed that consider both efficacy and byproduct formation in a representative range of real-world environments.” Specifically, the report notes that “standardized consensus test methods could enable potential certification programs for air-cleaning products and services. “ This standard test method places portable air cleaners in a room sized test chamber and tracks the indoor chemistry using a pull-down approach over four hours. This standard is different from existing air cleaning standards in five primary, important ways: 1. Challenge chemicals are tested at realistic indoor levels to better represent indoor chemistry in a real environment. 2. Ozone is injected at realistic indoor levels to ensure a wide range of indoor reaction byproducts are present to challenge the air cleaner. 3. All challenge chemicals are injected together in a large chamber and tracked over four hours allowing time for chemical reactions to occur and be quantified. 4. Both chemical removal and byproduct formation are quantified. 5. Ultrafine particle formation and removal are quantified. While experiments were performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to support the protocol development and provide precision and bias data, this work is the result of a collaborative international effort of over 20 academic, governmental and industry experts working within ASTM WK81750 over a three-year time frame. This is the second ballot for this work item. The item was balloted in June 2023 and received negatives from six voters. Over the last year the workgroup has worked to reach consensus resolutions to over 200 issues.