News by Swasti Sharma
Chandigarh, Sep 4: Scientists of Urban Air Laboratory, a startup by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar, IIT Kanpur, and Faculty of Management Studies of Delhi University (DU) have developed a living plant-based air purifier. It is named “Ubreathe Life”. It is developed to amplify the process of air purification in indoor spaces (rooms, hospitals, and houses etc.). It is the world’s first ‘Smart Bio Filter’.
The purifier has a stack of many filters fitted in a wooden box. On top of it, specific plants are kept. There is centrifugal fan inside it which creates a suction pressure inside the purifier which releases purified air formed at the roots through an outlet in a 360-degree rotating motion. The specific plants remove particulate, gaseous, and biological contaminants in the air. The room air interacts with leaves and goes to the soil-root zone where maximum pollutants are purified. The scientists used technology to exponentially amplify the Phytoremediation (a process by which plants remove pollutants from the air) process in the plants. Plants like peace lily, snake plant, and spider plant which are known indoor air purifying plants have been used. The results show that the AQI (Air Quality Index) for a room of
150 sq.ft. drops from 311 to 39 in 15 minutes of using ‘Ubreathe Life’.