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.

Space Oddity

Summary

First part - the application analyses the ambient air quality using and comparing the sample data against the Satellite data. In order to visualize it, we've created an AR application which shows (for example) the Ozone values at some data points on the 3D model of Earth. The second step- Filtration. The device will be using UV rays, Hepa filters and two types of Zeolites (A5 and 13x).

How We Addressed This Challenge

This whole system will be integrated in a single device. The device, whilst continuously in the filtering mode, also simultaneously performs monitoring using spectroscopy. The device will  also offer more detailed data through the analysis of for e.g. the OMI data.

The first part of the application analyses the ambient air quality using spectroscopy and compares the data against the Satellite data. In order to visualize the data, we've created an AR application which shows (for example) the Ozone values at some data points on the 3D model of Earth. The second step, so called ,,Filtration'' part will start with the UV rays, which will be able to kill all the microorganisms (bacteria, virus, fungi). We should take a note that in some cases and specific conditions, Ozone can be decomposed under the UV rays and a little extra Oxygen can be produced. Neatly constructed Hepa filter will then catch all the existing dust and dirt particles and the air going through it will be free of the most undesirable and easily removable particles. The last and the most noticeable challenge will be removing the pollutants in the air by using two types of Zeolites (A5 and 13x).

Next step describes how we can purify air even in more detailed and specific molecular levels with Zeolites.


5A:
The main component of 5A molecular sieve is alumino-silicate that forms potassium aperture with 5A and it is a molecular sieve of calcium autunite A with A-type crystal structure. 5A molecular sieve has adsorption capacity of the sieve element with critical diameter of 5A. The key applications for 5A Molecular Sieve includes: the adsorption of water, carbon dioxide, ethylene, and propylene from feed gas in air purification units and the separation of air, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen from mixed gas streams.

Chemical Formula: 3/4Ca2O*1/4Na2O*Al2O3*2SiO2*9/2H2O

Silica-Alumina ratio: SiO2/ Al2O3≈2

13 X:

The main component of 13X molecular sieve is aluminosilicate that forms potassium aperture with 10A and it is a molecular sieve of sodium X with X-type crystal structure. 13X molecular sieve has adsorption capacity of sieve element with the critical diameter greater than 10A.

It can be used as an excellent desiccant in gas, chemical and air separation. Molecular Sieve Type 13X is capable of adsorbing the same compounds as types 5A, 4A, and 3A and is commonly used for air generation in the Medical Oxygen industry and air compressor systems, utilization as a catalyst carrier, and co-adsorption of CO2, H2O, and H2S for gas dryers and purifiers.

Chemical Formula: Na2O*Al2O3*(2.8±0.2)SiO2*(6-7)H2O

Silica-Alumina ratio: SiO2/ Al2O3≈2.6-3.0

why are these Zeolites needed?
Imagine a mixture of these materials, which will be capturing and catching all the unwanted pollutants in the air and just saving them for themselves. The result is, that we get high quality air, without the list of unwanted particles and molecules. Although, A5 Zeolite is capturing Oxygen, the percentage in the result, compared to CO2, will be negligible.
But the most interesting part will be how we can manage to make these collected pollutants reusable. 

How We Developed This Project

We've used ARKit to develop our AR application for visualizing the data.

Project Demo

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yEaBUy4Eeje2AT3tvxroJieSf8wdQ3XO?usp=sharing

Data & Resources

NASA data, OMI, EarthData

Tags
#air quality #spectroscopy #AR # Zeolite #UV rays #Data analysis #OMI
Global Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Global Judging process.