Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday inaugurated the country's first smog tower at Connaught Place to rid the capital of polluted air. Delhi is grappling with deteriorating air quality, especially PM 2.5 particles. This outdoor air cleaning technology is designed to give people clean air around them.
Congratulating the people of Delhi, Kejriwal said that in the war against pollution, Delhi has started the country's first smog tower. This smog tower made of American technology will reduce the amount of pollution in the air. If the results of this project started on pilot basis are better then more such smog towers will be installed all across Delhi. The CM said that by installing such a tower, efforts have never been made to clean the polluted air in the country.
This technology is imported from America and the tower is about 24 meters high. This smog tower will draw air from the surrounding one kilometer radius and then clean that air. After this, the fans which are installed below it will clean that air and release it from below. Its capacity is about one thousand cubic meters per second. That is, this smog tower will clean one thousand cubic meters of air per second and release it outside.
The CM added that this is a new type of technology and it is being seen as a trial in a way. "We will keep a constant vigil on it in the coming times. People from IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay will analyze this data and tell how effective this smog tower is in cleaning the polluted air," he informed.
Comparing the current levels of PM 2.5 and PM 10 pollution, the CM said that at present, the situation is better than what it was in the year 2014. Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said that the smog tower will be made operational at full capacity as soon as the rains end. The height of this tower is 24.2 meters from the ground and the plan area is about 28X28 meters i.e. 784.5 square meters.
Apart from this, the tower has been made from RCC and steel. It has the capacity to release one thousand cubic meters per second filter air through the fan. A total of 40 fans have been installed in the tower which will run at a speed of 960 rpm (rotation per minute). A total of 5,000 filters are installed in the tower.
The 3M electrostatic air filter is rated based on its ability to capture the smallest airborne particles in your home's air, which make up 99 percent of the particles you breathe each day. These tiny particles can stay in your lungs, while larger particles can land on the floor within minutes. The measure of a filter's ability to capture these tiny particles is called the microparticle performance rating (MPR) and its filter's MPR is 2,200.
The novel filters will attract and capture fine particles such as smoke, cough and sneeze debris, bacteria and viruses, and larger particles including lint, household dust and pollen. The monitoring of the smog tower will be done through in-built SCADA system (supervisory control and data acquisition).
