The Mission

PASTA’s mission is to use the viricidal and bactericidal capability of nonthermal plasmas to decontaminate and sanitise air without using filters or UVC.
PASTA aims to demonstrate the feasibility of the PASTA concept and quantify its decontamination capability against airborne pathogens.
PASTA aims to developing the system and interface requirements to satisfy the requirements from NHS Hampshire hospitals.
PASTA aims to validating the prototype system performance under the operating conditions of NHS Hampshire hospitals.

The Problem

HVAC (Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems for hospitals require a different approach than other applications. When designing HVAC systems for hospitals, we should consider a series of aspects to ensure the well-being of patients and NHS staffs.

Although thermal comfort is one of them, the most critical aspect is safety for both patience and personnel occupying the building because patients’ immune system is usually weak and their bodies vulnerable to bacteria, viruses and airborne infections.

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However, current HVAC systems do not eliminate the risk of pathogen transmission through the air completely. More than 900,000 patients a year in England are infected while receiving medical treatment in hospitals. Recent study of S Dance shows airborne transmission is responsible for more than one third of hospital-acquired infections. Moreover, the COVID-19 risk study of Nguyen et al highlights that people who work in hospital settings had higher COVID-19 infection rate (20.2%) compared with that of  the general population (14.4%)

Current air handling systems in hospital rely on filtration and ventilation to reduce the risk of exposure to viruses and the spread of disease. Recently, the University of Nebraska medical centre (USA) shows that 63% of the air samples were positive with a mean viral load of 2.9 copies/L, including air found in patient rooms and hallways, albeit they have HVAC system with HEPA filter. This shows that current filtration systems are not sufficient for filtration of smaller pathogenic agents like viruses and cannot remove any volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are about 1000 times smaller than what H13 HEPA filters can capture.

The Future

PASTA uses the bactericidal and virucidal capabilities of non-thermal plasma techniques. Our preliminary biological test results show that we can achieve higher than 4-log reduction (99.99%) in pathogens without using filters and fans, and that chemical compounds decompose. Therefore, the system can be applied to inactivating viral particles and reducing VOCs; eliminating the risk of the infection caused by viral/bacterial residues on filters; reducing the noise and discomfort caused by noisy fans. It will give benefits to:

NHS patients:reducing the risk of airborne infection and providing quieter treatment environments.
NHS staff:eliminating the risk of contact harmful pathogen residues when they replace filters.
NHS:reducing costs of hiring temporary staff, improving patient care and waiting times, and improving mental health of NHS staff by ensuring the safety of their workplace.
Hospital building operator:reducing the energy bill by at least 50% compared to HEPA filter system (which is consuming approx. 105 W for handing 190 m3/h using HEPA class H13)