| Abstract: | Heating, ventilating, and air‐conditioning (HVAC) systems ensure indoor air quality and provide a comfortable environment. However, the conventional HVAC systems only provide indoor ventilation and adjust temperature and humidity. This work removes indoor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) using a feasible and novel air‐cleaning for an HVAC system, to remove indoor VOCs. An activated carbon‐fiber (ACF) filter calcined with copper oxide (CuO) catalyst, called a CuO/ACF catalyst filter, was the developed kit. Formaldehyde, a major VOC, was chosen as the target pollutant. Experiments were performed to confirm the filtration ability of the CuO/ACF catalyst filter in removing formaldehyde in a stainless‐steel chamber equipped with a simplified HVAC system. Total air exchange rate (ACH) was controlled at 0.5 and 1.0 h?1, the fresh ACH was 0.15 and 0.30 h?1, and relative humidity (RH) was set at 30 and 70%. A first‐order decay of formaldehyde existed in the controlled chamber when the two pretreated CuO/ACF catalyst filters were employed. Experimental results demonstrate that the CuO/ACF catalyst filters removed formaldehyde effectively. The decay constant was 0.425 and 0.618 h?1 for 0.5 and 2.0 ppm formaldehyde, respectively. Moreover, the formaldehyde decay rate increased as total ACH, fresh ACH, RH, and the Cu(NO3)2 concentration for calcination of CuO/ACF catalyst filter increased. |
