THORNMAIL - Space Apps Challenge

THORNMAIL| Purify the Air Supply

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.

Air purifiers using ultraviolet radiation and filtration

Summary

The challenge chosen was 8, there is the purification of air supplies, the problem encountered is with regard to the spread of respiratory diseases from pollution of the atmosphere. How can we solve this problem?The solution found was the use of filters, but in a different way, the filters will be accompanied by a phase of filtration, and the wastes retained in this filtration will be irradiated through ultraviolet (UV) light, which has a very high effectiveness against bacteria , fungi and viruses eliminating about 70% when exposed to air, and 90% when exposed directly to a surface.The project is important because its main objective is atmospheric filtration in order to improve air quality

How We Addressed This Challenge

In view of the moment we are living in, where people, especially those belonging to the risk group, are having to be confined to their homes, the project meets the objective of providing a purer and safer environment, at a low cost. , even causing the reduction of contaminating agents present in the atmosphere.

How We Developed This Project

The project aims to provide a better quality of life, through a product that will provide protection and prevention of respiratory problems, the idea of creating a filter that, in order to become more effective, goes through two stages, first the water bombarded by chemical agents and then passing by an irradiation by type C ultraviolet light (UVC), with that, according to AJIC - the ultraviolet light acquired an efficiency of 68% to 75% against bacteria suspended in the air, and when pointed directly at a surface its effectiveness increases to 90%, (American Journal of Infection Control, February 2018, Volume 46). According to the plans, yes it can be considered a complete and very portable solution, when only the UVC is attached.

Project Demo

Nine out of ten people breathe contaminated air in the world, this is due to the presence of viruses, disease and poor air quality.
We are THORNMAIL TEAM and our mission is to improve the air we breathe
We will do this through two steps: recycling and solubilizing the air in an ionized solution.
For that to happen we rely on the action of UVC rays after the solubilization phase, in order to be absorbed by the microorganism's DNA - changing your genetic sequence and preventing your reproduction. Come and see our project

https://bit.ly/equipe131spaceapps

Data & Resources

https://airquality.gsfc.nasa.gov/health

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/drop-in-air-pollution-over-northeast

https://airquality.gsfc.nasa.gov/pollutants

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/advasc.html

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/g-281237_eclss_0.pdf

https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-311X1992000300010

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1881

Global Judging

This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Global Judging process.