University of Arkansas researcher and physics professor Hugh Churchill is creating and testing portable air filters that help remove infectious airborne particles — including respiratory droplets that carry coronavirus — from interior environments using simple, inexpensive supplies available at any general department or home improvement store.
And he wants to teach you how to make your own. Duct tape, a basic box fan and commercially available air filters are all you’ll need.
“While masks and vaccines are polarizing topics, there shouldn’t be anything controversial about clean air,” Churchill said in a UA news release. “These devices facilitate that. They provide an additional layer of protection that could be widely deployed to make our K-12 and university indoor spaces healthier during this wave of the pandemic. And they’re easy and inexpensive to build. My 9-year-old built one.”
Churchill, who heads up an experimental research group in the physics department, researches condensed matter and quantum materials to develop or improve gadgets that benefit people and the environment. According to the UA, his lab, for example, focuses on spiraling chains of selenium and tellurium. When employed in nanowires, these two minerals show promise in the next generation of digital technology, solar energy and quantum computing.
But, for the time being, this and other projects have taken a back seat to the struggle against COVID-19. Churchill has been working with the UA’s facilities management division and the Arkansas Research Alliance for several weeks to create and test a prototype of a basic box-fan filter that helps purify indoor air.
“Improving filtration and ventilation in classrooms is a common recommendation to help fight the spread of COVID-19 and improve indoor air quality,” Churchill said. “There are commercial products that do this, but they can be cost-prohibitive. Our teachers and school districts have worked extremely hard and used many tools to keep our kids’ classrooms safe. This is one more tool to help them.”
HOW IT WORKS
According to the UA, there is a growing trend in the facilities and HVAC communities around the country to make indoor places as safe as possible. Citizen scientists and amateurs have joined the effort, creating homemade air purifiers based on open-source and simple do-it-yourself designs by air-quality specialists.
Churchill gives the manufacture and testing of a homemade box-fan filter a higher level of scientific credibility. He spends a lot of time working on nanoscale electrical devices, and one of his primary goals is to eliminate air particles, which can damage them. Churchill has also spent 15 years working in so-called “clean rooms” with highly well-filtered air.
A particle counter, which Churchill uses in his lab to analyze different filters, is used to monitor the purifier’s success. They also use sophisticated microscopes to see microscopic pores in the filter material, holes through which particles can pass. One of the filters they tested from a well-known company, for example, had numerous such holes. As a result, its particle removal effectiveness was found to be significantly lower than anticipated.
According to the UA, Churchill’s purifier is an improved version of Richard Corsi’s “Corsi-Rosenthal cube,” conceived and designed at Portland State University. Corsi is a well-known expert in the field of indoor air quality. The sides of the cube are made up of four or five filters with a minimum efficiency reporting value of 13 (known as “MERV” in the HVAC sector) and a simple fan. Duct tape is used to seal and …….
Source: https://talkbusiness.net/2021/09/ua-researchers-build-diy-air-purifiers-to-remove-covid-particles/