Impact of the SEMCO anti-stick face coating on the collection and cleaning of environmental tobacco smoke from the wheel surface.

by SEMCO Incorporated

Columbia, MO - April 18, 2008 - Smoking environments, like casinos require large quantities of outdoor air to maintain an acceptable indoor air quality and to conform to the current building codes. The ASHRAE 90.1 energy code requires that systems serving these types of applications requiring high outdoor air percentages employ total energy recovery wheels (requiring greater than 50% total enthalpy recovery.)

One of the major challenges to installing total energy recovery wheels (and other air to air heat exchangers) to serve heavy smoking environments is avoiding the collection of the environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on the surface of the transfer media, which can result in the increase of pressure loss and the reduction of system airflow.

SEMCO has developed an effective anti-stick coating that has been shown to meet these objectives. This document summarizes the results of a research project initiated to investigate the effectiveness of this enhanced wheel face coating with regard to the collection and cleaning of ETS.

A test chamber built and operated by researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute provided the data necessary to confirm the benefits offered by the anti-stick face coating. The new coating was found to both reduce the amount of ETS collected and to promote effective removal with compressed air alone.

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