APAS Project – Air Pollution Abatement Systems

APAS – Air Pollution Abatement Systems

• The need: to improve air quality
• The solution: APA – Air Pollution Abatement, the innovative technology
  
• The effect: purified air

Video APA 1
Video APA 2
Video Geo Scienza – Rai 3

The Problem and Surrounding Issues to Resolve

Fine particles are the main air pollutants affecting the health of the population. The emissions of anthropogenic origin, in fact, have long reached concentration levels significantly higher than the absorption capacity of the planet earth. Fine particles are now the main “factor pressure” of air quality deterioration, of many diseases and many factors impacting health.

The very high concentration of fine particles in urban centers arises mainly from consumptions and the human lifestyle, mainly due to:

• domestic heating emissions (especially diesel, coal and wood) and household appliances;
• residue on road surfaces from the brakes and tires of vehicles;
• internal combustion engine emissions (trucks, cars, airplanes).

 

Globally, cities are responsible of more than 40% of global greenhouse gases emissions and, at the same time, are easily affected by climate changes. In particular, the levels of particulate matter in urban centers still reach levels of health risk, especially for PM 10, PM 5 and PM 2.5. In recent years, in answer the increasing impact of this problem, cities are widely offering themselves as a laboratory for new approaches to environmental protection, risk mitigation, and adaptation of solutions.

Air Pollution

 

A real solution to air pollution:

APAS Project – Air Pollution Abatement Systems

Spurred on by emerging markets and developing countries, world society is globally characterized by strong industrial growth and a continuous increase in consumption, mobility and energy needs.
Technological development incisively influences pollutant emissions into the atmosphere (hence the phenomenon known as “greenhouse effect”) with dramatic implications on the environment and welfare of the population.
Long-term exposure to particulate air pollution is a serious problem considering the harmful effect that fine particles have on human health. Epidemiological studies, carried out by several agencies and research institutions, show that exposure to high concentration levels of fine particles generates tens of thousands of excess deaths compared to normal atmospheric conditions, and also causes alarming losses of billions of dollars for consequent healthcare costs and productivity limitations.

Health effects of pollution

 

The adoption of specific, effective and truly sustainable solutions to safeguard and preserve the quality life of future generations can no longer be postponed. Many efforts have been made and different strategies and proposals have been advanced by the scientific community in order to find reasonable solutions for such dramatic problems. All of these strategies dealt substantially, to reduce pollution by acting on the emission sources of pollutants and, in practice, nothing concrete has been applied where people live and work.

The solution

We propose an alternative solution, widely applicable to the reduction of air pollution, especially particulate. The creation of a wide area network of distributed air pollutant absorbers, called APA (Air Pollution Abatement), acts to treat the air in all indoor and outdoor areas characterized by high concentration levels of particulates and other harmful pollutants. APA is particularly suitable for working, production and industrial sites as well as residential areas with high population density and intensive vehicular traffic (where concentrations of greenhouse gases, therefore, are higher).

The approach proposed by Is TECH is based on a (distributed) innovative strategy, focused on pollution abatement where necessary, following a “social” strategic line of sustainable development and improvement of quality of life: the improvement of air quality!

Realizing a wide area network of distributed particulate abatement systems (APA) for air treatment in urban areas and working, production and industrial plants, applying the technological solution APA in a structured approach based on dense dissemination (and camouflaged) in the most polluted areas – since the pollution is generated mainly by human activities – would facilitate a strategy of intervention truly “sustainable” and effective (flexibility and modularity of intervention, limited extent of investment, reduced timing of implementation, high quality solution , ease of use, practically zero emissions and zero waste)!
The dissemination strategy of intelligent platforms for the abatement of anthropogenic pollution, for timely distribution determined according to the specific characteristics of the area subjected to intervention, when executed, offers a precise distributed abatement process effectively and closely related to the real needs of the area to be cleaned up; that is, where high population density is concentrated, so more pollution is generated (mainly because of the effects of road traffic), where there is an urgent need to limit and reduce, incisively, the greenhouse gases concentration.

The innovative intelligent multifunction platform APA – Air Pollution Abatement

APA is an intelligent modular platform, patented, able to abate anthropogenic pollutants in the atmosphere, especially particulate matter, heavy metals, PAH – Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, pollen, and spores.

In order to better meet the needs of diverse industrial sectors, Is TECH is finalizing the development of an integrated two-stage process:

• the first next stage is functional to electrolytic oxidation of light hydrocarbons, to the seizure of metals and to the dissociation of inorganic compounds, such as NOx and SOx;
• the second next stage is functional to the chemical conversion of CO2 in the form of bicarbonate.

The operation of the multifunction platform APA is extended to all indoor and outdoor areas and, in particular, to:

• working production and  industrial sites, subject to legislative and regulatory restrictions (especially for safety and health workers), considering that companies are increasingly oriented to follow the best practices sustainability, integrated strategies for environmental protection, cost and risk savings in order to create social and economic value;
• heavily polluted urban areas, with general benefits for the environment and the population.

At present the basic structure of the platform APA has been completed, stabilized and certified; already selected by Italy of Innovators in the 2011/12 edition, APA has received the CE mark and IMQ certification (Italian Quality Mark Institute) in July 2012. Further structures of the APA technology are undergoing stabilization and development through checks and field analysis, with extensive and ongoing test sessions in different industrial and urban areas since September 2011.

The basic structure of APA has an air flow capacity of over 2300 m3/h, a noise level of 55 dB/m and requires an installed power of 540 W; the system presents cylindrical dimension,  about 120 cm in diameter and about 170 cm in height.

The structure of the platform is modular, however, separable and changeable on the three stages of which it consists; in addition, it is camouflaged in the armor and in urban (including public buildings) and industrial design solutions of which Is TECH is performing, in cooperation with some of its qualified partners, the industrial design preliminary to production activity.

In fact, APA has been designed to fit different operative situations, with specific operating characteristics of the system in according with, mainly, the unique basic principle to sustainability in terms both of economy and environment: no emissions, no waste!