2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
In the Netherlands, a plant has been created for cleaning street air from small toxic particles contained in it. This giant "vacuum cleaner" is able to draw in and pass polluted air through the filter within a radius of up to 300 meters. Reported by The Guardian.
Ambient air quality has an important impact on human health, especially in large cities. Particular harm to humans is caused by the smallest solid particles with a diameter of 10-2.5 micrometers, as well as ultradispersed particles with a diameter of up to 100 nanometers. Penetrating into the lungs, they can cause cardiovascular, respiratory and oncological diseases. According to the WHO, in 2012 alone, 3.7 million people died prematurely because of them.
Today, various air cleaners are used in industry: cyclones, electrostatic filters, scrubbers and others, but they are usually used to clean indoor air. Dutch engineers, in turn, have created an outdoor air purification system that can be installed directly on the roofs of city buildings.
The โgiant outdoor vacuum cleaner,โ as its creators call it, is a steel tube about eight meters long. It can purify about 800 thousand cubic meters of air per hour, filtering out 100 percent of fine particles and 95 percent of ultrafine particles. How exactly they are filtered, the researchers do not specify. According to representatives of the Envinity Group, where the development was created, the outdoor air cleaner is able to draw in an air column with a radius of 300 meters and a height of up to seven kilometers. This data is based on test results at the Netherlands Energy Research Center.
Last month, another project to combat air pollution began in Beijing - a filter tower that cleans city air from smog. The Smog Free Tower system was developed in the studio of Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde. The seven-meter-high tower cleans 30,000 cubic meters of air per hour, filtering out up to 75 percent of toxic particles. Contaminated air enters the top of the tower, which is saturated with positively charged ions that attract dust particles.
Christina Ulasovich
