An onus on filter cleansing to decrease mounting air pollution

Expressing concerns over the rising pollution, the industry leaders emphasises on a few changes onto the operational front pertaining to the air filters, so as to provide a quality air.

Air pollution has been a global concern, which is hitting the climate very hard. Considerably, several Indian cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, among others, are highly polluted, and considerably, even the South-east Asia, among the other countries, are easy preys of air pollution, essentially due to the extensive use of fuel based vehicles that generates toxic contents in the air, further affecting the atmospheric conditions.

Air filters
Air filters in any cooling or heating system puts an impetus on any service provider or the manufacturer to cater best air flow to the desired and designated surrounding. Various companies promise to provide quality air flow to its customers, but, at times, fail to meet the client’s requirements, resulting into incessant pollution indoor, affecting the habitat. We experience heaping health hazards as a result of negligence, or compromise in services delivered, or product manufactured.

Filter’s function in purifying the air
Any filter is supposed to block the toxic elements from entering the system or the cooling equipment.Earlier, the air filters were used to sift the heavy dust, and the plastic, or, any other waste, so that they should not enter in the air handling unit, but now, the scenario has changed the need of hour, by the advance filters, which can filter particles of size 1 micron, and many options are available to achieve the same. The particles of the size 1 micron, are called the pollutants, which can be VOC’s, smoke particles, dust, fungus etc; and seeing the condition of pollution in India especially in Delhi and NCR such type of filtration is must. Kulwant Singh, Founder, Kleanwave Solutions, says, “Technological evolution is going on, hence we expect to witness more technologies to come up in the near future, not to just filter the pollutants but to reduce the pollution also.”

Ayush Jha, Founder & CEO, Clairco says, “Our air filters have much lower pressure drop, compared to the filters available in the market with much higher efficiency level for purification. The pressure drop means, the pressure in the air before and after it’s filtered. Pressure drop is usually measured in terms of water column level in chip. Our filters have around 0.3 inch of water column pressure drop, whereas, any similar purification filter has water column pressure drop of 1 inch”.

He further highlights, “Our filters are around 70 per cent more efficient, than those available in the market. Also, we retrofit in any part of the air-conditioner. If you want a higher level of purification for your AHU, you need to buy an AHU that can deliver that kind of air filters and that kind of air quality, but we are able to modify the existing filters to the similar ones. For instance, we can modify the existing ones by installing our filters into their air-conditioners”.

Consistency in cleaning air filters
It’s imperative that the air-conditioners, and the ventilation systems installed provide better air purification, which can only be possible when the filters are cleaned and maintained timely. Jha says, “Air pollution have reached to an alarming stage, concerning the government and the people. Around 12 lakh people lose their lives every year, because of the air pollution, and that’s a huge loss.”

There is also a constant rise of people suffering from asthama. If people spend 90 per cent of their day indoor, it’s imperative that the air-conditioners, and the ventilation systems installed provide better air purification, which can only be possible when the filters are cleaned and maintained timely.

Filter cleaning is a compulsion and must be conceded on a regular basis, so as to evade redundant load on the air handling equipment. Singh says, “As, evidently, any load into the air filter or any air equipment is bound to create pressure into the systems, further conning the filter’s capacity and polluting the inhalant air, which not only degrades the systems efficiency, but also compromises the safety of the recipient.”

Possible ways to stop the toxic elements from intruding
Considering the seriousness of the alarming situation, following the intensifying pollution in the India, the government is equally taking possible measures to suppress the air contamination, as a part of ‘national clean air programme’, with an aim to reduce the pollution and improve the air quality by 2024.

The only way to stop being affected by the pollution is by ensuring the installation of better air purification system, indoor. As most of the people spend 90 per cent of their day indoor, so, it’s imperative that the air-conditioners installed provide better air purification, which can only be possible when the filters are cleaned and maintained timely. These filters avert all possible intrusion of pollution, into the system and in the desired arena. In simpler term, if these air filter are not cleaned and maintained properly, the air quality will get compromised.

On the same view, Jha suggests that it is imperative to clean or change the air filter based on the technology of the equipment filters and Clairco ensures the quality air flow and well maintained air filters. He further mentions, “Clairco’s IT team, with the help of the machine learning algorithms, are able to meticulously monitor the air quality. We understand and realise the speed of the fan and cooling systems; AI diagnoses the exact problem and its location, and suggests to change or clean the filters accordingly.”

Singh enlightens further by saying, “There are various automation services that can be applied and utilised into the filtration process to improvise the air quality, as the automation process will identify the error and would pose an alarm to the concerning authorities, who would then accommodate additive services to clean the required filters”.

Evaluating the time frame
Jha emphasises not to follow traditional methods of servicing or cleaning the filters; as in only in prescribed number of days, instead, it must be done considering the outdoor air quality and climatic conditions. “When it comes to OEM, the air filters, mainly the AHUs, require cleansing in every 15 – 30 days. At Clairco, we do real-time monitoring of the air quality and the air filters, throughout. Precisely, the filters must be cleaned as per the data received from the system and not based on the number of days or any general hunch”.

A city like Bangalore, is highly dependent on road transport for commuting; therefore, it is more polluted because of extensive use of vehicles. Jha highlights that, “It’s imperative that the air filters in Bangalore are cleaned every 15 days, whereas, in Delhi, which is highly polluted and are meeting with several others issues connected to air pollution, it would vary in every area, depending upon the level of pollution”.

Although, through advance automation, we can identify blocks in any air filter, Kulwant recommends that one must conduct a periodical check on the filter’s status, considering its ambient conditions because sometimes automation may give false readings of status due to any component failure. He says, “Many of us had some bitter experiences of the technological failures especially in BMS”.