China Builds "World's Biggest Air Purifier"

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rgMekanic

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Researchers in northern China have built a 328 foot tall air purifier to help combat the nations chronic smog problem. The system works through greenhouses covering about half the size of a soccer field around the base of the tower. Polluted air is sucked into the glasshouses and heated up by solar energy. The hot air then rises through the tower and passes through multiple layers of cleaning filters. The tower effectively covered a 10 sq km area, and testing has shown a 15 percent reduction in PM2.5 particles in the area.

We will have to see where this technology goes. Despite producing 353 million cubic feet of clean air a day since its launch, it seems the reduction at this point is a little underwhelming when you think of the manufacturing and maintenance costs a facility like this would have. Interesting stuff nonetheless.

The experimental facility in Xian is a scaled-down version of a much bigger smog tower that Cao and his colleagues hope to build in other cities in China in the future. A full-sized tower would reach 500 metres (1,640 feet) high with a diameter of 200 metres (656 feet), according to a patent application they filed in 2014.
 
There were trees. They died from the particulates plugging up the pores of the leaves.

Well,...it sounds good. :)
 
15% doesn't sound like a lot considering the scale of the setup. Then again I know nothing of these things.
 
Technology is the solution to climate change, not reverting to a pre-industrial society.
 
Jovian said:
15% doesn't sound like a lot considering the scale of the setup. Then again I know nothing of these things.
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It doesn't sound that good. I would love to have seen a timeframe with that. Is it a reduction of 15% per month? So the first month its 15% and then since it's scrubbing already "clean air nearby"it goes to 30% and then 45% etc? I believe it won't work that way as air is constantly flowing according to wind/weather systems and new air will come into the given area which would need to be cleaned again.

The thing is once that air is cleaned, it's going to travel outside that 10 Sq KM to your neighbouring city to the north, east, west, south or whatever area the wind blows. Even 10 Sq Km though is enough to cover a lot of smaller cities in their entirety providing cleaner air.

All of Manhattan is only 59.1 SQ KM. If the full-scale building covers three or four times the area of this "trial" version, you might eventually be able to replace part of 3-4 apartment buildings strategically choosen with a tower and effectively clean all of Manhattan's air and the areas around Manhattan would benefit from being down/up/side wind of them. Just a thought anyways.
 
The pollution from consructuin, power and the people to run this thing will offset it nicely.
 
So the idea is to basically make a pressure differential due to solar energy heating an area and moving (presumably towards the huge filter dong) which would pull in surrounding air that gets heated and dongified. Wonder how effective this actually would be, "oh hey the area around the filter dong has beautiful air, however low winds means the rest of the region is a horrible mess still.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So the idea is to basically make a pressure differential due to solar energy heating an area and moving (presumably towards the huge filter dong) which would pull in surrounding air that gets heated and dongified. Wonder how effective this actually would be, "oh hey the area around the filter dong has beautiful air, however low winds means the rest of the region is a horrible mess still.
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Pretty much this
 
One day of raining is enough to clear their air pollution to tolerate levels. Might be better to install sprinklers in all buildings, and have a drainage system where it'll collect the run off and process it to say concrete or asphalt mix. #FutureisNow
 
As with most of China's endeavors, color me skeptical. I still remember their last "smog tower" that ran on coal-burned power and had results offered to the public that independent parties determined were a lie. There are a host of other concerns regarding this beyond that, of course, I'm just asserting that if they're willing to fudge numbers I imagine that there's other unspecific drawbacks here.
 
Ok. I was half expecting a giant surgical mask draped over a factory. But instead we have a giant dick that sucks the air?!

Well that’s just backwards...
 
3v4oECq.gif
 
the Chinese love propaganda projects to showcase how technologically forward thinking they are.

prob will get shutdown in less than 5 years time when the grant money runs out
 
theBrownLlama said:
the Chinese love propaganda projects to showcase how technologically forward thinking they are.

prob will get shutdown in less than 5 years time when the grant money runs out
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You think this will last 5 years? LOL The solar highway they recently built lasted a week before they shut it down, and you think this giant air filter thing is going to last a span of time to be measured in years? HAHAHAHAHA
 
Sounds good...

Except..

- How much pollution does creating the filter media cause?
- Is the filter Media reusable?
- If the filter media is reusable, then, what happens to the gunk you remove from it?
- How much power is needed to keep the facility clean?
 
The device was built to filter a specific type of particle that's particularly harmful to humans and animals. It is effective in accomplishing that specific goal so I'm not sure why there are so many detractors in this thread.

It will be interesting to see how well it scales up when more devices are added.
 
Terra-forming and air scrubbers, not just for space colonization anymore!

But seriously, the costs and efficiency are not even close to whats needed but I do think its a step in the right direction. I've been telling people lately that we need to get over the questions of climate change and the blame game and move forward. Aside from preventative measures we also need to focus on climate management and this is a step in that direction.
 
Seems interesting.

Emissions reductions through efficiency can only go so far.

It's probably not a mistake that most, if not all, the largest oil producers are banking on CO2 recapture technology to meet emission standards.

Even if you take a cynical slant on it, ie they can sell this technology, make money, etc, the goal is always the bottom line; and CO2 recapture is cheapest way to meet the goals compared to higher efficiency/emission reduction.
 
lostin3d said:
Terra-forming and air scrubbers, not just for space colonization anymore!

But seriously, the costs and efficiency are not even close to whats needed but I do think its a step in the right direction. I've been telling people lately that we need to get over the questions of climate change and the blame game and move forward. Aside from preventative measures we also need to focus on climate management and this is a step in that direction.
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No, it's not. Aside from the "climate" part not even being anywhere near as relevant as the much simpler and far more difficult to dispute "I don't want dirty air and water"(that is a step forward and no one is going to dispute that without risking sounding like an idiot), this crap needs to be dealt with at the source rather than attempting to rely on hokey nonsensical ideas like this.

Even if we ignore the manufacturing and maintenance issues, this only covers one particle size in a 10 square kilometer area, which is effectively nothing when you've got factory after factory(among other things) just spewing crap into the environment(this is how pollution in china got so infamously bad in the first place). This is the PR gimmick equivalent of cleaning up the hudson river with one guy using a small net.
 
So don't clean up the sources of the air pollution, instead try to clean up the polluted air? That makes no sense, so it must be a political/propaganda move.
 
lostin3d said:
Terra-forming and air scrubbers, not just for space colonization anymore!
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My first thought reading about this was SimEarth atmosphere scrubbers, lol.
lostin3d said:
But seriously, the costs and efficiency are not even close to whats needed but I do think its a step in the right direction. I've been telling people lately that we need to get over the questions of climate change and the blame game and move forward. Aside from preventative measures we also need to focus on climate management and this is a step in that direction.
Click to expand...
It's true. Paradigm changes are necessary for the long term, but other "reversing" tech is necessary as well. Ocean skimmers, waste filtration, slag processing. I don't know what we're going to do about Canada's northern aquifers though... totally fucked that one.
 
I remember photos back in the 60's of people on ladders with big hoses (like fireman) sucking in smog in LA. Presumably the air was filtered and put out cleaner. What worked of course was much tighter pollution controls. I was given a $600 HEPA filter once, it really cleaned the air. Then I needed new filters, cost about $500...it's in a closet now. Hate to see the cost of replacement media for this...or can they wash it? Hope so.
 
velusip said:
My first thought reading about this was SimEarth atmosphere scrubbers, lol.

It's true. Paradigm changes are necessary for the long term, but other "reversing" tech is necessary as well. Ocean skimmers, waste filtration, slag processing. I don't know what we're going to do about Canada's northern aquifers though... totally fucked that one.
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We can worry about cleaning up the mess once we've quit creating it at the pace we currently are. Like WhoMe mentioned just between our posts, LA's air quality isn't perfect these days but it's a hell of a lot better than it was just even in the early 80s and that didn't happen due to gimmicky nonsense like this.
 
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