Panasonic demonstrates how air quality can be improved

Panasonic stands for quality air.

"Every day we take in 18kg of air a day but nobody is talking about the air we breathe," Philip Chua, Director, Domestic Business Division, Panasonic Singapore said. Panasonic has studied how to improve air quality in addition to controlling temperature and humidity for more than half a century - 2018 is the 60th anniversary for Panasonic air-conditioners, he said.

Panasonic's Nanoe air-purification and filtering system is one technology that helps to improve air quality. Using nanotechnology, 480 billion OH radicals are released by the system per second to deactivate 99% of airborne bacteria and viruses in the filter’s indoor unit. It also neutralises odours. In a demonstration at MCE Asia, Nanoe completely removed the smell of durian from test swatches in 90 seconds. Nanoe is already in use in Toyota and Lexus cars.

The CO₂ demo lab, showing how CO₂ concentration levels can build up rapidly. Executive Director, Malaysia at Panasonic Ichiri Suganuma explained that Panasonic has a solution to CO₂ concentrations building up rapidly in closed environments. Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) technology from Panasonic can remove CO₂ and pipe in cool air that is free of PM 2. 5 particles. PM 2.5 refers to particulate matter which are smaller than 2.5 micrometres in size.

CO₂ management is particularly important for small office-home office (SOHO) environments, which are often poorly ventilated and air-conditioned for eight hours a day, he said.

A booth representative discusses SOHO air quality.

Air quality is equally important for hotels. A survey by Expedia showed that 40% of respondents actually say indoor air quality (IAQ) is an important criterion when they book a hotel, Chua said. High CO₂ levels affect productivity and performance. In a 2012 study, CO₂ at 1,000 ppm caused statistically significant decrements in performance in six of nine scales of decision-making performance.

Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) technology from Panasonic can change CO₂ levels quickly, helping people become more productive. ERV removes the polluted air and replaces it with outside air that has been filtered with Nanoe.

An energy management system for rooms makes use of various IoT sensors.

An Internet of Things (IoT) solution for hotels also keeps air quality high while managing energy in conjunction with Schneider technology.

The solution can activate or deactivate the ventilation, lighting and blinds intelligently with the help of sensors supporting the Zigbee standard. The sensors monitor room temperature, humidity and CO₂, can tell whether doors are opened or closed, and detect if there are people inside.

For example, Panasonic Nanoe technology minimises odours and inhibits viruses, while door sensors will ensure that the air-conditioning is switched off if the door to the balcony has been opened. Motion and CO₂ sensors can work together to determine if there are people in a room, and then switch off the lights if the room is empty.

Explaining how Aerowings
work.

Panasonic's energy management systems customers include Patra Jasa Hotels in Indonesia, the Travelodge Hobart in Australia, and the Gapurna Group in Malaysia.
Panasonic also demonstrated air-conditioning innovations at MCE Asia.

The Aerowings design has two independent blades that provide more control over the direction of the airflow. Traditionally, air-conditioners can only direct airflow to specific parts of the room, creating spots which can get too cold.

Aerowings can direct airflow to more parts of the room, and with the Shower Cooling capability, can direct air towards the ceiling for more even cooling in an area.

Explore:

Read the WorkSmart Asia blog posts about Singapore Green Building Week , super low energy buildings, and the TechTrade Asia blog posts about Surbana Jurong’s City of ____ and on Panasonic's device interconnectivity.

Environmentally friendly GROHE smart water system growing in popularity in Asia

Source: GROHE. The GROHE Blue system in action.

The GROHE Blue smart water system has seen significant takeup in Asia since a May 2014 study* which found that its carbon footprint is smaller than that of bottled mineral water. 

Estimated greenhouse gas emissions were 17.96 g CO2-eq/litre for the GROHE Blue system against emissions of 70 to 600 g CO2-eq/litre for bottled mineral water, depending on the type of packaging and the place of origin. The values achieved by GROHE Blue are also lower than those of conventional water dispensers, which range from about 35 to 50 g CO2-eq/litre. This means that GROHE Blue allows users to save greenhouse gas emissions of at least 25 to 50% over other alternatives. 

The system supplies filtered and chilled water in three different variants - sparkling, medium and still - directly from the same custom kitchen faucet, allowing different users in an organisation to enjoy their preferred type of water at any time. Unlike typical office potable water arrangements, no bottles have to be filled, transported or recycled in order to obtain the three types of water from a GROHE Blue system, which adds to its environmental friendliness.

Dorit Grueber, GROHE’s Vice President (Marketing), Asia, noted that Asian businesses are becoming more green and are attracted to GROHE Blue especially in matured markets, where their employees are more time-strapped.

There is definitely an increasing trend as consumers become more environmentally conscious," she said, naming Vodafone and Miele as customers of the product. "Since the publication of the study, we’ve seen a significant increase in orders that have been recorded, especially in the B2B sector. The main attraction for GROHE Blue for businesses would be the convenience of getting filtered water straight from the faucet, and an outstanding design which combines pure drinking water and washing water in a single faucet."

*The May 2014 study was carried out by the Production and Logistics Chair of GeorgAugust University in Göttingen in cooperation with Grohe. Between July and November 2013, the scientists of Göttingen University compared the carbon footprint of one litre of water tapped from the GROHE Blue system with the footprint of one litre of bottled water. The scenario was based on the assumption of 30 users per day who drink one litre of bottled water on 220 days of the year over a period of five years. The calculation of the carbon footprint covered all five lifecycles of GROHE Blue and of bottled mineral water, which range from production and transport of the raw materials as well as transport of the finished product to consumption and disposal.