Purify the Air Supply

Has your time spent indoors increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of stay-at-home and shelter-in-place policies worldwide? Your challenge is to use the International Space Station (ISS) as inspiration and develop a system to monitor and/or purify indoor air. It is entirely up to you whether the system you design is able to be used on Earth (for example in homes, businesses, transportation, etc.) and/or in space.

CYROM Air Filter ( Cyanobacteria Induced Rotary Moss Air Filter )

Summary

The CYROM Air Filter or Cyanobacteria Induced Rotary Moss Air Filter is an air filter that uses Cyanobacteria and mosses to filter out VOCs and harmful particles that will inevitably harm the health of humans and other living organisms. With a basis for phytoremediation, this air filter presents a novel design by filtering air using a filter made out of living moss embedded in rigid sponge soaked in cyanobacteria that is rotated counter actively from the air supplied by the intake.

How We Addressed This Challenge

This project  aims to filter and purify air with the help of  phytoremediation methods and microorganisms.

How We Developed This Project

Living in an industrialized tropical country is a daily challenge for most of us. The air is contaminated with the carbon and dust emissions from  industrial factories and diesel/gasoline vehicles. The air is hot and impure that is caused by the loss of trees  due to  a massive hit of urbanization making breathing  difficult for some of us especially those who have respiratory issues. Air conditioning  systems are expensive and also  emit harmful effects to our health , and a number of air purifiers that is available in the market  maybe is affordable but most of them use chemical solutions  that will  run out, and will cost you a lot of money for refills. So  we the members of this team  sought for a solution that is sustainable, affordable, and is pure green with a touch of the 20th century with no harmful emissions to humans. We used readily available materials for the device that is readily available in the market like The PVC pipe, dc motor, and the  intake and the exhaust fan. But the most  significant  innovation in our device is by the use of  rotating Moss in filtering the air. The moss are embedded/planted in rigid sponges  that is rotated clockwise by  a  dc motor. While it rotates, a canister of Cyanobacteria solution  drips cyanobacteria  to soak the moss filters and improve their phytoremediation  capabilities.  The  moss filters are rotated in a clockwise manner to counter force  the pressure of the incoming impure air from the intake that will maximize it's efforts to improving it's filtering capabilities. With the help of ESA (European Space Agency )'s research and application of microorganism in their biological filters, we arrived at a conclusion that a biological approach in filtering air is feasible and has more potential than it actually have.

Data & Resources

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Tags
#Justbreath #Pureair #78%nitrogen21%oxygen1%argon #COvid19SpaceAppschallenge #Filteringthyair
Global Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Global Judging process.