During the difficult times of the COVID-19 outbreak, people stay at home more than ever. As a result, many people suffer from lack of fresh air and deterioration of indoor air quality. The indoor air is highly polluted by various pollutants. These pollutants include gaseous pollutants like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrous oxide, organic pollutants like the VOCs, and particulate pollutants like the aerosols, dust, and smoke.
Our project is an air purifier that solves this problem by filtering majority of pollutants in the air. The air purifier is durable, affordable, and easy to use. It consists of two fans to move the air in and out of the purifier, a pre-filter to filter large objects like hair, insects, and sand, an activated carbon filter to filter VOCs and eliminate any odors, and a HEPA filter to filter small particulate pollutants like spores, mold, and bacteria.
In conclusion, our solution was found to solve the challenge of deterioration of indoor air quality as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. It can filter various pollutants from the air, thus improving the air quality indoors.
During our first meeting as a team for NASA space apps COVID-19 challenge, we read all the challenge carefully to decide which challenge to choose. We unanimously agreed to choose “Purify the air supply” challenge, due to its extreme importance. We believe that indoor air quality must be improved, just like outdoor air quality. After the outbreak of COVID-19, people started staying inside their homes more than ever; so, the indoor air quality declined.
Our project is an air purifier that purifies indoor air and removes various pollutants. The purifier consists of two fans, pre-filter, activated carbon filter, and a HEPA filter. The two fans move the air through the purifier. The pre-filter filters large particles like hair, dust, and insects. The activated carbon filter removes volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that have a negative impact on humans from the air. It also eliminates bad odors. The HEPA filter cleans the air from tiny particulate pollutants. It can filter any particle 0.3 microns or larger. Thus, allowing it to purify the air of spores, mold, and bacteria.
The data provided by space agencies from the hackathon was very useful in our project. The idea of our project was inspired by the environmental control and the life support systems on the ISS. The methodology to purify the air was inspired by the way NASA purifies the air inside the ISS, too. The air pollution statistics before and after the COVID-19 outbreak from NASA helped us significantly in our project.
During the difficult times of the COVID-19 outbreak, we could not make a physical prototype for our project. However, we created a website and 3D design for the demonstration. The website was created using HTML. It was coded on visual studio code. The website contained brief information about air pollution and the description of our project. The 3D design of our project was created using 3ds max. It demonstrates the parts of the air purifier. In addition, we created a short video to showcase the air purifier. It was created using Filmora.
During the 48 hours of the hackathon, we made many achievements and faced many difficulties. At the night before the hackathon, there were 6 members of our team. Unfortunately, 3 members decided not to continue working in NASA space apps COVID-19 challenge. However, we decided to continue working on a solution. Our first achievement was designing the air purifier. The second achievement was completing the website. The completion of the 3D design was the third achievement. Our last achievement was creating a short video to showcase the air purifier.
Our 30-second showcase video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsrMV2K_XGc
Our website hosted on Porkbun: https://airthpurifier.co/Index.html