Questions about air filters in high pollution areas.

Just looking out of the window this morning and seeing all the city smog going on here and I was wondering if some kind of compressed air and filter arrangement would not remove most of the suspended particles in the air coming into the house? It would not be an answer to the pollution outside but at least if it was effective, would give some clean air inside the house.

I was in hospital recently visiting a relative who was on oxygen and they had a bottle of (assumed) water with an airbrick in it with the O2 being pumped through the airbrick. (similar to what there is in fish tanks) The thought occurred to me that passing the air through water would probably place most of the particulates into suspension in the water and from there could be extracted according to whatever process extracted the various chemicals. In bad pollution areas like I live, maybe houses could have things like air-conditioner but air filters which pass the air through various filters to clean it. Nothing fancy but a simple arrangement.

I know that the air conditioners we have here are not conditioners but coolers and work like 'fridges with coolant needing to be topped up every couple of years if they stop being effective at cooling. Most houses and apartments have at least one for the lounge and one per bedroom. However, they do not pull the air in and condition/filter it. I am sure there are air filters you can buy, but trying to examine the possibility of something simple and relatively cheap. If it is already out there, I have not see people using it here, which is strange.

What kind of electronics would be needed to measure particulate size? If I had the relevant components, could an arduino be used to do this effectively ?

A few years ago, I remember the US Embassy here was going to publish their version of the particulate size but the government asked them not to cause confusion...so now we only have the authorities official published figures.

Ive thought about this before, we would need atomic filters for this, and everyone here on ATS said its not possible to do with current technology.

reply to post by qmantoo


Maybe something in here will work for you?
www.amazon.com...

I saw a few units that were cheap... but small. You could perhaps put inside of your bedroom to give you approx 8 hours of clean air per day (while you sleep). Google 'home air purifiers' and some much more expensive units are also available. Other than that maybe a big plastic ball you could live in, or a nice house in the countryside could suffice :up

Edit: Check out the ion air purifiers, that's about as good as it gets for normal consumers.

Plants are some of the best air filters. They could save you money on energy costs too.

Gerbera daisy (Gerbera jamesonii) – Just like the chrysanthemum, this plant features bright flowers and requires lots of sunlight. It removes both benzene and trichloroethylene.

Mother-in-law's tongueMother-in-law's tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata 'Laurentii') – This hardy plant (at left) filters formaldehyde and doesn’t require a lot of maintenance.

MNN.com

HEPA filter material can be purchased and is quite good at removing some of the crap. It will depend on the type of air conditioner you run as to how useful it can be. It is better than nothing. It is the same material that good vacuum cleaners use and they work well.

P

reply to post by qmantoo


Make the air sucked into the house get forced through a trough of water ... the water will filter out most dust and particulate matter ... however it will do nothing for the toxic gasses associated with smog and I have no immediate clues as to how to filter them out in an easy cheap fashion unless you want to construct your own activated carbon gas mask like filters,

ZonedOut
reply to post by qmantoo

 

Make the air sucked into the house get forced through a trough of water ... the water will filter out most dust and particulate matter ... however it will do nothing for the toxic gasses associated with smog and I have no immediate clues as to how to filter them out in an easy cheap fashion unless you want to construct your own activated carbon gas mask like filters,

I wonder if you could scale up a cars carbon canister? Perhaps using a small rain water tank. I know a 250G tank can make the water filter, follow that with another tank modeled on a cars carbon canister. Can get expensive.

P

ETA I would go HEPA filter at the start, water filter next with a minimum 200 - 250 Gallons (1000 Litres) and the carbon filter last in the chain.

Ok, thanks for your thoughts. I suppose anything which has a pump as part of it is going to be fairly noisy too. A fan just wont give the kind of 'suck' which is needed to get the air through the filter fast enough.

qmantoo
Ok, thanks for your thoughts. I suppose anything which has a pump as part of it is going to be fairly noisy too. A fan just wont give the kind of 'suck' which is needed to get the air through the filter fast enough.

I am thinking of a tank with a 3 foot diameter. 7 square feet is more than enough for a fan to suck through. Two fans, one pushing at the start and one pulling at the end will work well. Think big fans.

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qmantoo
I am sure there are air filters you can buy, but trying to examine the possibility of something simple and relatively cheap. If it is already out there, I have not see people using it here, which is strange.

To get the smaller particles, it helps to have a filter with an electrostatic component that charges the small particles with an ionizer and causes them to be deposited onto a filter which they would otherwise pass through. I bought a couple of those and they work pretty well (Hunter HEPAtech).

The ionizer could have some downsides if the ionized particles reach your lungs before they get dissipated but the likelihood of this would depend on the ionized particle output and your proximity to the ionizer.

If you don't care about the ionizer, this is probably the cheapest solution using filters you can buy at a home improvement store but be sure to get the HEPA type (you can also get fancier filters with carbon to remove odors and some other pollutants if you wish):


Dirt cheap and I imagine it works pretty well down to the particle size on the filters you use. I don't have one but I found this pic elsewhere and thought it was kind of clever for an economical solution. They don't show the hole in the top of the box but I'd make that round,slightly smaller than the diameter of the fan blades.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I like the improvisation picture. That looks really easy and may work if the fans are strong enough to pull air into the box. I have a couple of carboard packing cases somewhere too. Thanks.

reply to post by qmantoo

You're welcome. The fan pictured is generally a three speed type. Even though I haven't tried it, I'm fairly confident even on the lowest speed (which is the quietest setting), it would be more than adequate for one room. I use an improvised fan/filter system like this on my computer enclosure which only has three small fans (about 4" diameter each) and they pull plenty of air though the filter and enclosure.

If you have a larger space to filter, you may want to try the higher, noisier speeds, but I think these are so cheap a better and less noisy solution is to use more than one.

I don't know what it is like in your part of the world but the roof element of a evaporated air conditioner would be a really good starting point. Many pop up on the secondhand market for not much money at all. You may even get the big fan with it.

P

We recently had an issue with our AC system. I tried checking the ducts and discovered loads of molds there. I believe, cleaning the areas that could contain mold and allergens are really difficult no matter if you are among the best DIY experts. However, thankfully borrowed some tools from our friend who runs a Denver carpet cleaning and provides Air Duct Cleaning Denverservices and got that cleaned.
He helped me and even advised me to replace the in few months regularly.

I used to make carbon filters for friends and family along with myself. They are dirt cheap and simple. Trust me they work really good and are cleanable yea thats a word now and re useable. Its like 8-10 bux at WalMart for one they are green with a black back thats activated carbon. You can use an inline booster fan for ac ducting to push or pull air through and u can use box fans with it strapped right on the back either works well and you can smell feel and taste the difference in the air quality almost instantly.
A 200 cfm booster fan can touch all of the air in a decent sized bedroom within 5-10 mins and the 400cfm fan I really liked to use was within 2-3 mins. I lived in a house with cigarette smokers and was one myself and it could even power through a cigarette or two in a closed room within 10 mins due to being such a strong smell. The smoke was gone instantly but the smell stayed till it hit the filter a few times.
Cost for the box fan setup was around 30 bux including filter and fan but I preferred the storage tote with the filter flat on the top or two filters in a cylinder shape standing up or inside of the tote if space was an issue. Those costed about 60-100 dollars for materials based on fan cfm and how many filters and how large of a tote. Even cleared up cat litter box smells for a friend with 20 cats and 10 litter boxes in their basement.
If you need some design ideas I might still have some pictures of the ones I made before somewhere. Its been like a year and a Hal since I had mine assembled due to moving and not having any room. The filter lasted about a year for me with heavy use and I washed then about once a month or every 2-3 months with the dual filter. Garden hose and dish soap worked just fine.