Engineering360: "Team develops 'catch and kill' air filter"

They say this heated filter doesn't add a lot of heat to the air, but show no statistics...so I have my doubts...I don't see how you can run air through a filter that is 250° and not add a great deal of heat to the air stream...This might be fine in the winter time, but adding an additional heat load on an existing A/C system, is not going to fly....and I would think that running virus laden air through a sweating evaporator coil would catch quite a few viruses, not to mention a HEPA rated filter...and I might add you can install a UVC light to shine on your evaporator....although I would add, I don't consider this primarily for virus control but rather for mildew, algae and bacteria...still it gets the viruses too....

You could make the system regenerative as in a counterflow heat exchanger. I was wondering about using a peltier junction where the air is pulled past the hot side and discharged across the cold side.

That could be rather energy intensive, peltier is not efficient, I mean watts per btu is added to the A/C cost, although that might be easier to retrofit, still would need some cost analysis...would need to calculate reliability and maintenance costs associated as well as design life.....If the unit was maintenance free and lasted for 20 years, then there might be a shot, if the price wasn't prohibitive...say 2 to 4 hundred...in residential sizes...

You're right that the Peltier junction would not be economically justifiable for larger installations, but I thought it might be worth considering for a personal size unit. A main feature would be to filter the air coming in as well as the air coming out. I thought it interesting that a couple of months ago there was not much concern about filtering discharge air from ventilators.

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Worth a look...resistance heat always carries a high electrical burden though...they are heating the filter in excess of 400°F...in a folded accordion type filter, that's a lot of area...I would just go with an activated charcoal canister. coming and going....

https://uh.edu/news-events/stories/july-2020/07072020ren-coronavirus-filter.php