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The bottleneck might be the air in the room

blog.mikebowler.ca

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Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#341

Post by OutOfHere »

b112 wrote: post #95
stein1946 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Raising awareness is the only real solution. You'd have to raise awareness on every single person in the room and them sustain pressure to the organization in order to have proper CO2 levels in the room/organization. And then you have to align every other person on every other organization to do this as well and hope for the best. Or, you can do the right thing and have the state introduce regulations

I can just imagine the horrors and skin crawls that your last sentence has evoked in some people's minds. Not the state!! But seriously, so much care needs to be taken here. OK, well "care" at least. Employers certainly would benefit from scrubbing CO2 from the air, in terms of productivity. I'm willing to bet that with central air it would be quite easy, and even with heat and AC off, lots of places still circulate…

Controlling indoor CO2 is important, but it's a proxy metric for the escalation in indoor bioeffluent VOCs which are a tiring subset of total VOCs. This is why scrubbing indoor CO2 will by itself never produce the pro-cognitive result you want. See https://www.aivc.org/resource/effects-carbon-dioxide-and-wit...

Scrubbing indoor CO2 is sensible only when you want to go below the outdoor CO2 level, not at levels above it.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#342

Post by tmp147963 »

Having CO2 sensors is mostly useless.

In Quebec province in Canada, they added CO2 sensors in all the classes in all the schools after covid. Now what? Having data does not change anything if nothing is done.

If instead all the millions invested would have gone into adding air exchangers, now that would actually do something.

And that is assuming that CO2 levels really have an impact. From the last time I researched the subject, I found that there were few studies showing an impact.

For context, from what I remember, in submarines the CO2 levels are usually between 10 000 ppm and 20 000 ppm. Very far from 1000 or 2000 ppm.

Also, CO2 sensors are usually pretty bad. I work in HVAC and I hate calibrating them, the readings are not very consistent. Leave them alone for a few years and a good percentage will simply output bad readings.

Then you see things like a teacher leaving the windows open in winter because the sensor says 2000 ppm all the time instead of realizing the problem is the sensor. (CO2 levels should go back to atmospheric levels over the weekend for example at about 450 ppm)

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#343

Post by mikestew »

bob1029 wrote: post #234

I've noticed that cooking with gas is easily the worst thing for CO2 levels. Even with lots of ventilation my kitchen will hover around 1200ppm until it's over with. I swear I can feel the 430ppm already. I was born into a world with 340ppm. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when we hit 500+ globally. I'm in the market for an active CO2 scrubbing solution that I could deploy at home. Scrubbing the entire pla…

I swear I can feel the 430ppm already. I was born into a world with 340ppm.

You’re probably about my age, then, and I’m old. It might not be the baseline CO2 levels. :-)

Kidding aside, that would be hard thing to baseline.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#344

Post by shawabawa3 »

tmp147963 wrote: post #342

Having CO2 sensors is mostly useless. In Quebec province in Canada, they added CO2 sensors in all the classes in all the schools after covid. Now what? Having data does not change anything if nothing is done. If instead all the millions invested would have gone into adding air exchangers, now that would actually do something. And that is assuming that CO2 levels really have an impact. From the last time I researched…

I very much doubt submarines operate that high

The ISS runs at 3000-6000ppm CO2. over 7000 is dangerous

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#345

Post by bebe9494i4 »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #208
bebe9494i4 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I haven't heard that 30 minute figure before, you have a reference? I've seen articles about medical workers using masks for much longer. Installing air filtration and UVC in classrooms and meeting rooms certainly helps. Since the mask shortage cleared up, HCW have been advised to stop re-using them. I re-use mind til they get dirty, but maybe I should replace them more often. https://apnews.com/article/fda-n95-masks…

[flagged]

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#346

Post by a3w »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #344
tmp147963 wrote: post #342

Having CO2 sensors is mostly useless. In Quebec province in Canada, they added CO2 sensors in all the classes in all the schools after covid. Now what? Having data does not change anything if nothing is done. If instead all the millions invested would have gone into adding air exchangers, now that would actually do something. And that is assuming that CO2 levels really have an impact. From the last time I researched…

I very much doubt submarines operate that high The ISS runs at 3000-6000ppm CO2. over 7000 is dangerous

over 7000 is dangerous[citation needed]

I found 3-11k as regular levels, with no impairment known of. So acclimatization can happen?

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#347

Post by dr_dshiv »

amluto wrote: post #325
Tossrock wrote: post #12

Submarines operate in the 1000s of PPM CO2 range and the sailors aboard generally do not experience any ill effects. This was tested and no deficits were found even at 15,000 PPM: https://asma.kglmeridian.com/view/journals/amhp/89/6/article...

A major confounding factor is everything else in the air. Humans produce lots of different gases, and CO2 is usually a proxy for the overall concentration of our effluent gases. But in a submarine, or in some buildings, there are gas filters (usually carbon, possibly with various modifications) that can remove or destroy some of these gases but have no effect on CO2 . So the air in a submarine at 15000ppm CO2 could b…

The first person to deal with this may have been Cornelis Drebbel in 1610 when he deployed the first submarine. With 4 oarsmen submerged in a leaky wooden sub, they’d have too much co2 and too little oxygen. Somehow they were able to stay for hours at a time.

Robert Boyle describes Drebbel’s use of a “chymical liquor” to refresh the air.

“Paracelſus, indeed, tells us, that "as the ſtomach concocts the aliment, "and makes part of it uſeful to the body, rejecting the other; ſo the "lungs conſume part of the air, and reject the reſt." Whence, according to him, we may ſuppoſe a little vital quinteſſence in the air, which ſerves to refresh and reſtore our vital ſpirits; for which purpoſe, the groſſer, and far greater part of the air, being unſerviceable, it is not ſtrange that an animal ſhould inceſſantly require fresh air. This opinion, indeed, is not abſurd; but it requires to be explain'd and prov'd: beſides, ſome objections may be made to it, from what has been already argued againſt the transmutation of air, into vital ſpirits. Nor is it probable, that the bare want of the generation of the uſual quantity of vital ſpirits, for leſs than one minute, ſhould be able to kill a lively animal, without the help of any external violence. And, upon this ſuppoſition, Cornelius Drebell, is affirm'd, by many credible perſons, to have contrived a veſſel to be row'd under water: for Drebell conceiv'd, that it is not the whole body of the air, but a certain ſpirituous part of it, that fits it for reſpiration; which being ſpent, the remaining groſſer body of the air, is unable to cheriſh the vital flame reſiding in the heart. So that, beſides the mechanical contrivance of his boat, he had a chymical liquor, which, by unſtopping the veſſel wherein it was contain'd, the fumes of it would ſpeedily reſtore to the air, foul'd by reſpiration, ſuch a proportion of vital parts, as would make it again fit for that office; and having made it my buſineſs to learn this ſtrange liquor, his relations conſtantly affirm'd, that Drebell would never diſcloſe it, but to one perſon, who himſelf told me what it was.“

https://sourcelibrary.org/book/philosophical-works-vol-2-boy...

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#348

Post by ip26 »

deanc wrote: post #13

I’m not saying this isn’t a legitimate concern but this really seems to have exploded amongst the tech community as the next obsession. I see this pop up on X every few weeks. Is the concern about this really based on actual science? Is there empirical data proving people are less productive or are damaging themselves as a result of heightened CO2 levels? And I don’t mean observational epidemiology studies.

Any affect from CO2 specifically seems weak. Clean air in broadly good though, and high CO2 is a good proxy for stale air. So I’m always supportive of people caring and paying attention to their air.

Along the way they’ll either learn about or accidentally mitigate other ills like radon, nitrous oxide from stoves, diesel particulate’s impact on test scores, etc.

Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room

#350

Post by originalvichy »

microtonal wrote: post #85

Two tips: if you want a stationary CO2 meter in a room, you can make one very cheap with a SenseAir S88 sensor (22 Euro) and hooking it up to an ESP board. Flash ESPHome and you can get live statistics in your Home Assistant dashboard. The S88 is a pretty good optical NDIR Sensor that auto-calibrates by putting it in the outside air or in a well-ventilated room every N-days (N is in the data sheet). A bit more info a…

I would recommend Ruuvi Air, its sensors are high quality, and is quite open for devs to do pretty much whatever with it. Works by broadcasting sensor data over BLE, so if you have a smartphone or a home assistant server with BT connectivity, you can display or store the data live. The iOS app sends alerts when different custom thresholds are crossed, like for co2 ppm.

They do have a gateway product, but it’s not necessary if you have HA. If Apple homekit routers supported BLE as source it would work seamlessly in the ecosystem, but a bridge software is required on HA.

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