Work starts in the office of UlmAIR in Ulm-Dornstadt: Company founder and inventor of the indoor air purifiers Daniel Ehrhardt looks every morning at the large map of Germany that he hung on the wall to mark the opening of the production facility and is pleased: the coloured pins marking the locations of the purifiers are constantly increasing. The red pinheads are growing in more and more federal states, like in Bavaria and Berlin. But now he has put several pins on the map in the very north of Baden-Württemberg, in Karlsruhe.
The pins in Karlsruhe stand for the first X80s that have been set up in the schools there. According to current plans, the city has purchased 247 devices. Daniel Ehrhardt is most pleased that his UlmAIRs, of all things, ensure clean and safe classrooms, but also that this allows children to attend face-to-face lessons despite wearing masks and having to ventilate windows.
More than 15,000 units - production of the first X80s began in September 2020 - are now in operation throughout Germany, ensuring that the air in offices, shops, doctors' surgeries and classrooms of well over 150,000 pupils is circulated up to six times an hour. Most of the units, which are now built in six versions and many variations, are located in Bavaria with over 1000 units, and another 600 have an air purification contract in Berlin - and the trend is rising. The energy-saving fans work particularly quietly to send the air through the five-stage filtration with coarse, fine dust, pollen, activated carbon and HEPA H-14 filters. At noon, after each operation, the built-in thermocouple heats the trapped viruses to over 70 degrees, inactivating them and thus rendering them infection-free.
Because the mobile air cleaners are "quieter than expected", many school headmasters are "positively surprised", as the headmaster of Karlsruhe's Anne Frank School Johann Schwarz-Hemmerling told the reporter of the Badische Neueste Nachrichten. Only a soft hissing noise could be heard, he says. "A pleasant noise level," says the headmistress of the Daxlanden primary school, Nicole Seiter. She has ordered eight air purifiers and even wants to place one of them in the refectory. The Anne Frank School has the first 15 of the coveted mobile devices, which are easier to finance thanks to the grant programmes of the federal states. In total, the city has bought 247 air cleaners for the schools. Another 17 cleaners are planned for the day-care centres.
However, the filters will not replace regular ventilation of the classrooms, as stated in the hygiene instructions of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Education. Regarding the airing and the cold air in the rooms, headmaster Johann-Schwarz-Hemmerling says: "Of course, there is now a certain routine when it comes to airing." The children have warm clothes with them. In other schools, they also put a blanket around their shoulders if necessary. The mobile X80 room air cleaners are initially set up in schools where the windows can only be tilted, for example. The headmaster of the Anne Frank School on the devices that also purify the air: "You definitely have a better feeling." Parents had also been longing for the installation of the devices, he explains in the BNN.
By the way: Six renowned German scientists, such as Professor Hendrik Streeck, Director of the Institute for Virology at the University Hospital in Bonn, and Professor Dieter Köhler, a pneumologist from Schmallenberg, have proposed measures in a public statement to reduce infections with the Covid-19 virus indoors. A major role is assigned to indoor air purifiers, such as the X-series from UlmAIR. This is because it is a "scientifically undisputed finding" that "indoor spaces are the central sites of infection".
Caption:
The Badische Neueste Nachrichten also reports on its website about the installation of the 247 room air purifiers from UlmAIR in the classrooms of Karlsruhe schools. This means that the X80s from UlmAIR are ensuring safe and clean air in classrooms and refectories in yet another city. Picture: Internet/BNN
