CHENNAI: With more buildings and heavy traffic gobbling up space in Chennai, the metropolis has slipped into the ‘non-attainment area’, that is, not meeting the national ambient air quality standards prescribed by the Central Pollution Control Board.
Although vehicular exhaust and re-suspension material (tyre residue, for example) causes of 45 per cent of urban air pollution, everything from construction rubble, house painting to printer-ink can aggravate air quality inside homes as well.
A research by scientists at IIT-Madras is looking to beat the high pollutant load in the air, with a sensor-based air-purifier that hopes to one-up its commercial susbtitutes, efficiently.
Driven by studying air quality this three-member research team took to some of the worst-hit streets in the city, to measure pollution at its worst. The results were unnerving. Although ambient air stands at a pristine 60 micrograms per meter-cube compared to a regular road in the city that presents three times the pollutants in the air at 180, the records show that a busy road in T Nagar at its highest peak traffic could flush out a shocking 1,000 micrograms per metre cube of harmful pollutants.
“Air quality is not constant among all the pockets of the city, so its hard to come out with an average. But the condition does not look good,” says Prof Shiva Nagendra, IIT Madras.
This sensor-controlled portable machine which is aimed to become commercial soon, filters microbial matter, particulates smoke and dust matter, treating the microbes with the UV light placed inside.
The sensors locate pollutants and use fuzzy technology (automatic on-off as used in washing machines) to switch off, once the task is done to save power. Processed by activated charcoal at the bottom, the set-up consumes just 50 watts of electricity, pitting it to be cheaper than some of the air-purifiers in the market.
“Even pets carry microbial matter that affects breathing and health, this is also picked up by the machine and absorbed releasing only ambient air,” says Shiva. He says that it is poised to be particularly useful for anyone living in the ‘sensitive’ zones — near intersections, paint shops and road-facing houses. The device will also find optimum use with asthmatic and patients of other lung ailments, besides printing shops and dusty localities.
He tells City Express how there is also scope to make this device savvier and user-friendly for the smart-phone wielding crowd. He is toying with the idea of a GPS-enabled system to inform phones if there is a rise in dust or smoke at home. “Maybe it can even pick up on fires,” he adds excitedly.
