Performance Evaluation of Hybrid Air Purification System with Vegetation Soil and Electrostatic Precipitator Filters

• Published in: Sustainability 2020-07, Vol.12 (13), p.5428
• Main Authors: Elkamhawy, Aya, Jang, Choon-Man
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air circulation; Air pollution; Air pollution control; Charged particles; Cities; Design; Efficiency; Electrodes; Electrostatic precipitators; Engineering; Filters; Leaves; Modular systems; Multilayers; Outdoor air quality; Particulate emissions; Particulate matter; Performance evaluation; Plants (botany); Pollution control equipment; Porous materials; Precipitators; Public health; Public spaces; Purification; Research methodology; Sensors; Soil layers; Soil suction; Soils; Sustainability; Vegetation; Velocity; Water supply
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su12135428

This paper describes designing, manufacturing, and evaluating an eco-friendly modular-type air purification system to enhance the removal efficiency of fine particulate matter (PM) in urban public spaces, especially in hotspots. This system consists of artificial soil based-vegetation and electrostatic precipitator (ESP) filters. Unlike the so-called passive removal method, which adsorbs fine PM only by the leaves of plants, the vegetation soil filter based on multi-layered different artificial soils adopts an active removal method in which air purification is performed in the soil itself, bypassing external air by using the air circulation fan in the soil. The ESP filter is designed and evaluated to have a high fine PM removal efficiency, even at high suction velocity, to remove large amounts of outdoor fine PM. Throughout the experimental measurements on the hybrid air purification system with vegetation soil and ESP filters, it is observed that the vegetation soil filter has a 78.5% reduction efficiency for PM2.5 and a 47% for PM10 at the inlet air velocity of 0.15 m/s. The ESP filter also has a 73.1% reduction efficiency for PM2.5 and 87.3% for PM10 at an inlet air velocity of 3 m/s. Based on the performance evaluations of the vegetation soil filter and the ESP filter, it is noted that each individual module will be applied to an air purification tower with vertical expansion and installed in a high concentration area of fine PM in a downtown area to contribute to the fine PM reduction in the community.