Research centre opens to boost indoor air quality

An Australian Research Council (ARC) training centre that concentrates on improving indoor air quality and reducing spread of airborne infections has been announced.

The ARC Training Centre for Advanced Building Systems Against Airborne Infection Transmission is aiming to develop standards that would improve air in new builds.

The project, which will be hosted at QUT’s Gardens Point campus, aims to reduce transmission of diseases indoors through principles, technologies and systems that can be used in building control and management. The centre will be cooperating with the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC) to translate research into useful practical solutions.

“I firmly believe the centre will be a catalyst for revolution and bring us closer to clean indoor air becoming the norm,” said QUT Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska, who is leading the centre.

“Our work will see Australian building system manufacturing companies working alongside international companies, as forerunners in establishing the new norm.”

Last year Morawska called for the development of new standards of air quality to help deal with COVID-19, saying that food processing plants would do well to prioritise the improvement of air quality in order to reduce illness amongst workers. Meat packers were notably impacted by COVID-19 throughout the pandemic so far, with close proximity, low temperatures and poor air filtration blamed, and some adopted new technology to counteract these problems.

Infection by airborne diseases has an impact on the workplace due to time that workers have to take off, leading to millions of dollars in lost productivity each year. Using new standards and products to fight this will be a big undertaking but will reduce illness.

“Respiratory infectious diseases spread mainly by airborne transmission, which is the inhalation from the air of virus or bacteria-laden particles generated during breathing, speaking and all other human respiratory activities. Protecting building occupants from airborne infection in all shared interior spaces must be strategically controlled,” Morawska said.

“This has never previously been envisioned outside specialised sections of healthcare facilities.”

Image credit: QUT