The project aims at air purification of companies through electroporation and ionization technologies, the combination of these technologies is extremely important, as one complements the other, the ionization process makes the air more refreshing making the work for the employee less tiring, efficiency becomes even better as these technologies are all coupled to a completely autonomous drone making possible a better coverage of the area, so that there is no lack of load for the drone it contains the RTH system that allows the return programming according to the battery charge.
Our team was directed to the challenge of purifying the internal air by a union of common interests. Considering the presence of members affective to the development of drones (which are air-linked objects), linked to the area of biochemistry, as well as women working in the area of electromechanics, constantly present in laboratories. Keeping this challenge in mind as an essential issue for the maintenance of human health, the team approached the project focused on industrial areas, specifically for safety and commitment to worker health. One of the situations in which we systematize the project is the reality faced by the metallurgical industries, since this industrial area portrays several realities of polluted air from other factories, where products so valuable to our daily lives are promoted. At these high production sites, there is a wide range of polluting substances such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and heavy metal particles suspended in the air. Studying, for example, the production of steel, we discovered that processes, such as reduction in the blast furnace, besides releasing the slag for the production of the liquid pig iron, release other products of this sintering reaction from the coking plant into the air and, thus, local workers are extremely harmed. Also assessing the temperature conditions in large factories, we had the idea of purifying the air as it moved these toxic particles and pathogenic microorganisms to the top by means of a convection current.
NASA's air quality mapping data allowed us to observe the areas of possible effective drone action, using the OMI tool made available by the event features. We also used Autodesk Inventor to create the 3D prototype, Maya and COMSOL Multiphysics for the physical modeling of the mechanisms used (electroporation and ionization), Animaker and PowToon as tools to create the animation for the pitch, PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Google Documents, Google Meet, Whatsapp and Discord to communicate and perform activities related to the team's project design.
The hardware used for our prototype is an electroporator integrated with a device for ionization mechanism of the air particles. Our purifier would run on an independent electric battery. For the analysis and validation of the prototype, a sensor equipped with fiber optics and laser capable of detecting microorganisms in the air or water was also developed at the National School of Public Health Sérgio Arouca (Ensp) of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). The sensor is monitored by capturing a portion of air or water, where the presence of bacteria can be detected in a small compartment that receives the laser. The light measures the wavelength of microorganisms in this portion, instantly identifying the species of bacteria.
The air purifier vector is a drone, with a high autonomy battery that allows it to travel an area autonomously. The software used for testing the drone and coding in order to perform such an autonomous mission would be the ROS (Robot Operating System) with the C++ programming language. It would scan the area of operation and, from the GPS or camera, perform the flight and air purification autonomously. When the battery reached a percentage considered limit by the operator, it would activate the Return to Home flight mode, and would land safely, without causing damage to the employees working at the time or to the integrated devices.
Since our team is composed of women from high school and college, we went through various problems during the completion of the project, the main one being the inexperience in hackathons, as well as, in projects of such advanced technological content. However, this simultaneously became an achievement for all of us, since we were able to finish the same, presenting and reorganizing our best ideas.
The data used to develop the project were as follows: Annual-average NO2 for 2005 and 2018 over the globe (source: NASA)
HCHO levels in the southeastern USA during three different summer months: cold, hot and hot. Higher levels are indicated by darker colors. The data are from the Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument. Figure credit: NASA
Other data were:
Exposure to outdoor air pollution is estimated to be responsible for about 4 million premature deaths annually, with about another 3-4 million resulting from exposure to indoor air pollution; that is, air pollution is responsible for about 1 in 9 deaths worldwide (WHO, 2018; Cohen et al., 2017). Most deaths are associated with fine particles less than 2.5 µm wide (PM 2.5). It is necessary to know the concentrations of PM 2.5 and the concentrations of various pollutants to develop effective mitigation strategies for PM 2.5 as it is directly emitted into the atmosphere, as in the form of smoke and dust, but it can also be form in the atmosphere through chemical reactions that transform gaseous pollutants (for example, sulfur dioxide (SO 2), ammonia (NH 3), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2)) into particles (that is, conversion of gas into particles).