Development of a UV-C based Air Filteration System

With increasing population and rampart discharge of industrial/agricultural wastes, pollution has become a major concern in today's world not only in urban areas but in rural places as well. Air pollution gives rise to allergies in living beings which can lead to serious health issues in long run like pneumonia, lung cancer etc.The current air filters in the market make use of techniques which involve HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Arrestance) filters, Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI), activated carbon, Photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) etc. In this work we have developed a low-cost air filtration system targeting certain specific gases which are present in excessive quantities. Our system mainly focuses on reducing Carbon Dioxide content using UV laser, it being a greenhouse gas and one of the major causes of asthmatic and respiratory problems in humans. Carbon dioxide when passed through a system of UV rays breaks into Carbon [C] and Oxygen [O <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> ], thereby reducing the harmful CO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> present and increasing oxygen content in air. Our system also uses an Electrostatic Smoke Precipitator to filter out smoke. It demonstrated fair amount of resolution in containing the harmful gases as evident from results measured periodically in fixed time intervals.