The Dysart (Ariz.) school district is upgrading its HVAC systems by installing air scrubbers.
The district says it has installed 2,700 air scrubbers over the summer at all facilities--26 school sites as well as the support services and office buildings.
Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding helped pay for the air scrubbers, which cost the district $2.875 million.
The district is further enhancing its indoor air quality by purging the air each morning, bringing in fresh outside air throughout the day, and monitoring the air intake through automated systems.
The systems, which are called Needlepoint Bi-Polar Ionization (NBPI) systems, are commonly referred to as air scrubbers. The NBPI systems attach directly to the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system and produce positive and negative ions that travel with the supply of air into the building.
These ions form bonds with suspended particles that are in the air, such as pollutants, dust, pollen and pathogens like mold, viruses and bacteria. This causes them to stick together, and allows the HVAC system to filter the particles, which would have been too small to catch otherwise.
