Earlier this week, the City Council of Móstoles reported that it will begin the installation of HEPA filters in the air-filtration systems of its educational centres with the aim of providing the students and teachers there with increased safety and minimized risk of coronavirus infection.
The local administration claims to be the first one to implement this kind of step (although it is unclear whether they are the first in the autonomous region of Madrid or in all of Spain).
HEPA stands for high-efficiency particulate absorbing
Back in November following an agreement, the City Council of the second-largest municipality in the Madrid region purchased the air-filtering systems and their delivery was successfully completed on Wednesday, 23 December. Soon the actual installation is expected to begin.
The administration previews that 1500 of these filters will be placed in nursery schools, kindergartens, primary and high schools and vocational training institutes covering the entire educational network.
The Mayor of Móstoles, Noelia Posse, has assured that this will come at no cost for the parents or students no matter the type of school.
HEPA stands for high-efficiency particulate absorbing and is considered an advanced filtration system that allows the collection of very fine particles and aerosols. It is composed of minuscule and randomly placed fiberglass particles which have the ability to attract and trap particles with a diameter of as little as 0.3 μm.
There is a specified standard (UNE 1822) in the European Union for this type of filters, which states that they must have at least 99.95% capacity of capturing aerosols. The government of Móstoles decided to acquire the filtration system following recommendations by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), which stated that interior spaces that cannot be properly ventilated should be equipped with high-quality filtration.
Source: TheMayor.EU
