Tuesday 1 December 2020

How could wearable tech combat pollution on London Underground?

A scientist has developed wearable technology to combat pollution on London Underground.

The air purifier creates a personal vapour cloud, which cleans the air one breathes and reduces resuspension caused by foot motion.

Resuspension is the removal of material from the ground to the atmosphere.

But how these wearables work?

Kevin Chiam, Innovation Design Engineer of the technology spoke to FNZ about the function of Airtomo wearables: "At the core of each wearable or module is an ultrasonic transducer disc that vibrates at a calibrated frequency. Plain water gets broken down into tiny droplets as it passes through the disc.

"These droplets then bind themselves to harmful particles like particulate matter (PM) in the air, forming aggregates that fall to the ground due to gravity. They can no longer suspend and get into our bodies, even after the water evaporates."

Each wearable uses 1.5W of power and 23ml of water in an hour of commute.

Mr Chiam said that the smart technology can be fitted in various parts of the body: "When positioned near our face, Airtomo wearables provide a personal vapour cloud that actively cleans the air one breathes. Placing it on our shoe would reduce pollutant resuspension induced by foot motion."

He also explained the technology can also work for air pollution in several different settings, indoors or above ground and can also be applicable to buildings: "The same technology can be scaled up with more atomisers and connection to a water source. The system will instead be triggered by motion detectors to conserve water."

He added he was inspired by how nature uses rain to clean the air we breathe and the curiosity struck him while he was studying in London and was taking the tube to University: "I noticed the air on the tube can sometimes be dusty and heavy. That probed me to further research on the topic of underground air pollution."

The next step for the project is to refine the current wearable prototype into a much smaller footprint and if possible run tests in a larger setting.

If all goes well, the wearable can hit the market within one to two years and the costs should be no more than a small humidifier we find in the market today.

According to research, pollution on underground transportation can be 20 times higher than roadside air - reports claim that if a commuter spends just 20 minutes underground, this may lead to damage equivalent to smoking a cigarette.

The primary pollutants are PM 2.5 and 10, which are many times smaller than a strand of hair while iron oxides form the majority of the pollutants and are typically produced from the interaction between train wheels and tracks.

The wearable technology is among the twenty-four UK entrants which were chosen to be showcased in Global Grad Show, a virtual and interactive year-long exhibition that celebrates the work of academic research from universities around the world.

[caption id="attachment_214821" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Image: Airtomo[/caption]