University of Melbourne IAQ Research

erbas™ SUSTAIN, led by Jane Lai, has partnered with the University of Melbourne on indoor air quality (IAQ) research. The collaboration with Master research students, led by Professor Lihai Zhang, is currently utilising the erbas™ Melbourne office as a case study. The team is collecting baseline data to identify areas of improvement in IAQ, with potential to link the sensors to the office HVAC system. The IAQ sensors measure temperature, humidity, CO₂ (carbon dioxide), TVOC (total volatile organic compounds), PM_2.5 (particulate matter) and PM_1.0.

IAQ is linked with health and wellbeing and informs our engineers of the real life implications of their design decisions. Further, as part of introducing the Masters students to the building services field, each discipline in erbas™ provided a presentation at the beginning of the project.

Jane completed her PhD in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne, and is keen on maintaining research links with them as she sees the value in bridging gaps between academic research and industry practices.