Anaïs Guyomarc'h, director of operations and R&D at Eolisair’s Head office, supervised the overall efficiency tests of the professional air purifier EOLIS Air Manager, entrusted to an independent reference laboratory in microbiology. Here are the methodology and scope of the results obtained in the test.
What was the test procedure followed to verify the effectiveness of the professional air purifier against coronaviruses?
An aerosol of droplets, contaminated with a known concentration of coronavirus, was generated for 5 minutes in a sealed enclosure.
The EOLIS Air Manager 600S air purifier was then started for 10 minutes, in speed 2 which is a slow speed.
It was fitted with a Perform + filter unit, consisting of the following elements:
A biocidal pre-filter
A high density activated carbon filter
A HEPA 13 filter certified to EN 1822
After ten minutes of operation, an indoor air sample was taken.
After a seven-day incubation period, the amount of remaining coronavirus in this sample was determined.
The tests on the EOLIS Air Manager air purifier have been entrusted to an independent laboratory
A control test of the purifier without a filter was compared to a test with a filter. Each test was repeated three times.
The conclusion, validated by the microbiology laboratory which carried out all the measurements, is that the EOLIS Air Manager made it possible to eliminate 99.6% of the coronaviruses present in the air inside the enclosure in just ten minutes.
Do these tests prove the effectiveness of the EOLIS Manager against Covid-19?
The strain of coronavirus used during testing is not the one responsible for Covid-19 for obvious handling and safety reasons. However, we have chosen to test the effectiveness of our solution on a very similar strain of human coronavirus which was discovered in the 1960s, strain 229E.
These two coronaviruses have a very similar physical structure and the same mechanisms of propagation. The effectiveness demonstrated by these tests allows us to affirm that our air purifier EOLIS Air Manager is effective in eliminating the coronavirus SARS-COV-2 or Covid 19 in the ambient air.
Why not include a test on the effectiveness of UV-C or active oxygen?
We planned to test several configurations, in line with the functionalities of EOLIS Air Manager. But the results obtained with only Perform + filtration are already excellent under experimental conditions.
The protocol used would not have made it possible to quantify the additional effect of UV-C in a significant way.
As for active oxygen, we have carried out a test sequence! Paradoxically, this seems so effective that the active oxygen also destroys the virus remaining in the aerosolization container. However, the protocol is based on the comparison of what remains between each test. It was therefore impossible to scientifically conclude that the virus was decreasing in the air with this feature.
Do these results represent Eolis Air Manager’s usage in real conditions?
The experiment was carried out in a chamber controlled by an independent laboratory specializing in microbiology, a reference in the field. The coronavirus was nebulized to artificially mimic the way it is blown through the air, in aerosol form, by an infected patient. This is representative of a virus capable of contaminating the respiratory tract in a real situation.
The different stages of the EOLIS Air Manager test against the coronavirus in the laboratory
These tests show 99.6% efficiency in just 10 minutes and at low speed. Our EOLIS Air Manager purifiers are usually in operation 24 hours a day. They also combine the effects of HEPA H13 filtration, UV-C lamps, and active oxygen function.
Remember that they finally ensure harmlessness. They are the only ones to be verified in this way as part of the ETV (Environmental Technology Verification) program of the European Commission.
The results allow us to validate the effectiveness of our technologies for reducing the viral load, of the coronavirus type, in the air: they can be extrapolated in real situations under the recommended conditions of use.