Street air filter created by student prevents fine dust pollution

The machine can filter air on streets and can even prevent fine dust, which is dangerous to human health.

It was invented by a high school student.

The air dust filter displayed at the 2019 innovation competition for youth and children in Thua Thien-Hue province caught the public’s special attention as it runs on a very simple principle but can bring great efficiency.

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The creator of the equipment is Tu Thai Nguyen, a student at the Nguyen Hue High School in Hue City.

He hopes the equipment could be placed on walking streets, where it can both filter the air for urbanites and serve as a billboard.

In fact, there are many air filter products available in the market designed to fit different spaces, from families to urban streets, made in India, China and European countries.

“Why not make an air filter which is cheaper, more easilly accessible to users and easily usable?” Nguyen said.

After two months of working, Nguyen finally invented the machine he wanted.

He designed the street air filter based on the principles of household-use filters, while designing some changes to fit Vietnam’s conditions and ensure reasonable production and maintenance costs.

Nguyen's air filter has two same-direction propeller engines. One fan has the function of sucking air, while the other pushes air in order to maximize the volume of air to be purified.

The number of filter plates are flexible to fit the conditions in different localities. In general, the machine has two dust filter plates, one for coarse dust and the other to prevent PM 10 dust.

The dust filter plates can be cleaned continuously thanks to the vertical water supply system. The pump is responsible for bringing water from the clean water compartment to the filter plates.

When sunny, solar panels will provide power to the equipment. When the air goes through the first filter plate, coarse dust will be excluded. After going through the second filter plate, smaller dust will be excluded.

Nguyen’s dust filter equipment can be upgraded, and the air filter plates can be replaced easily.

The filter invented by the student has been installed on some streets of the city. The testing of the air filter capability was implemented by using dust sensors. According to Nguyen, the dust concentration can be cut by 30 percent when using the machine.

The strong points of the machine are that it is cheap and energy-saving, and can be easily installed and repaired.

Mai Thanh