Company targets air safety inside planes

BELMONT -- Daniel R. Dwight's work never left his mind as he pondered the air circulating in the packed airplane cabin on a recent Chicago-Denver-San Francisco-Memphis business trip.

''How can you not think about it?" he said. ''All you need is one person on that plane to be sick."

Fighting the common cold, avian flu, SARS, or an act of biological terror in such an environment is becoming Dwight's key focus.

Last week, Belmont-based Kronos Advanced Technologies, where Dwight is president and chief executive officer, became a partner in a Federal Aviation Administration project to improve and protect airline cabin air quality.

Kronos will provide its ''real-time" decontamination (which is the elimination of contaminants in the air as soon as they are detected) and air purification expertise as part of the Airliner Cabin Environment Research wing of the FAA's Center of Excellence. Partners include Auburn University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Boeing, and General Electric.

The Center of Excellence was established in 2004, and the cabin air research received its initial funding from the FAA in the spring of 2005. John D. Spengler, of Harvard University, is one of the research organizers.

Kronos, a publicly traded company, has 11 employees. It reported revenues of $430,000 for fiscal 2005, primarily generated from contracts with the US military. Its 2004 revenues were $533,000. Last year, it had a net operating loss of $2.7 million, stemming from various research investments.

Dwight, who worked at General Electric for 17 years and is originally from the Boston area, took over Kronos in 2001 and moved the company from Washington state to Belmont. He said the move was made with an eye toward accessing the deep pool of high-tech and scientific talent in the area.

Kronos has since focused on its air-purification technology.

Air cabin research has several components, including the effects of cabin pressure and the exposure and risks of pesticides on aircrafts. The current decontamination project concentrates on the cleanup of an aircraft upon landing after a biological or chemical incident, whether unintentional or a terrorist act, according to Kronos.

Dwight said airlines now use a mix of filtering techniques to bring fresh air into the cabin.

The Kronos technology relies on high-voltage electronics and electrodes to move and clean air without any moving parts: no motor, no fan. It can be embedded in a ventilation system or used, as in a building application, as a stand-alone unit. Kronos has designed air-purification applications for medical institutions and office buildings, as well as other consumer uses.

The company's filtration concept is based on running high voltage through a wire, which gives off ions, called the corona effect. When a second wire is introduced in close proximity, there is electrical interference. Dwight's propriety technology produces an oppositely charged and grounded grid.

''The discharge of positive ions, like a cue ball, hits molecules in the air and pushes them forward to the oppositely charged grid and you get air movement," Dwight explained. ''And you do that without a motor or a fan, so it's an extremely energy-efficient way to move air."

The result is a high level of filtration as the electric field creates an electrical imbalance in a virus that basically rips it apart, according to Dwight.

Kronos has conducted live testing on anthrax, E. coli, and other forms of bacteria. It is also consulting with the US Centers for Disease Control for further testing.

In the FAA project, Dwight said, Kronos will work with partners to apply the company's technology. Sometime later this year, Dwight plans a technical demonstration in an outfitted plane. An exposure will be simulated, and the technology put to the test.

The FAA and the CDC have strengthened their relationship with the airline industry in recent years, spurred on by Congress and concerns from the traveling public.

In testimony to Congress last year, Jon L. Jordan, the FAA's federal air surgeon, said new airplanes use ''high-efficiency particulate air" filters, similar to those used in hospitals and surgical rooms. He said the HEPA filters are 99.97 percent efficient and can remove vapors, bacteria, and fungi, and they can also capture some viruses.

Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board and a consultant to Kronos, said there are signs that the aviation industry is beginning to take greater strides in improving cabin air quality. He said the Kronos technology will take the efforts to a new level.

''The problem is, there really isn't any decontamination taking place," said Goelz, referring to the real-time treatment of air.

Health and aviation specialists are closely attuned to the research.

Diana Fairechild, a clean-air advocate, author, and former Pan Am flight attendant, said she is frustrated by what she considers a lack of progress even as bird flu, SARS, and other communicable diseases have stoked concerns and fear worldwide.

''The airplane environment is perhaps the most crowded space a person can be in," she said. ''It's a very contagious environment."

Fairechild said she now wears a cotton handkerchief to cover her mouth when she travels by plane.

''People used to look at me as I was eccentric," she said. ''Not anymore."