World's largest air purifier launched in China
March 15, 2018 | 08:42 |1833
China seems to have found the solution for increasing air pollution. The world's largest air purifier is built in Xian in Shaanxi province of northern China and the preliminary results have shown that smog levels have come down and there is some improvement in the air quality. The 60-meter-tall tower is a solar-assisted large-scale cleaning system. At the base of the tower, there are several greenhouses, which could draw polluted air into the tower, purify it before releasing it back to the environment. The tower can filter out fine particulate matter, including nitrogen oxides, nitrogen dioxides, sulfur dioxide, as well as PM 2.5, which considered to be most harmful to health. “This large-scale purification system consists of a series of greenhouses of round or rectangular shape with glass panels surrounding the base of the tower,” says one of the specialists the project, Professor David Puy. “Polluted smog is drawn in through greenhouses and heated by solar energy to clean the air. This newly hot air then rises up the tower through multiple scrubbing filters before it is released back into the atmosphere. This method allows the air to be cleaned using relatively minimal electric power. As result, the concentration of harmful substances and PM2.5 particles in the air is reduced.” There are results from preliminary run of the project with cost of $2 million. According to researchers, the tower has managed to produce more than 10 million cubic meters of clean air per day since it was launched. In the 10-square-kilometer observed area of the city, the concentration of harmful substances in the air decreased by 19 percent. The experimental facility in Xian is a scaled-down version of a much bigger smog tower that David Puy and his colleagues hope to build in Xian and other cities in China in the future. The new tower in Xian would measure 300 meters.Arslan KEMALOV
