Summary

The concept

The idea of the my final project is to realize an air filter that could improve the quality of the polluted air that can be found inside a room of an house. The problem of the pollution inside buildings is well known and usually is tackled in a “mechanical ways”: utilising air ventilation systems and mechanical filters. But this approach is not the most efficiente in term of treating the most common compounds that are responsible of the indoor pollution: the volatile organic compound (VOC). I would like to approach the problem using the best filter known in the world that can destroy easily this kind of compounds: plants. Also this technique to tackle the problem is well known but i think that also plants need an improvement. In particular to use plant in an efficient way i think that is necessary to augment their capacity to intercept polluted air.

This is why i though to merge the mechanical approach and the plant approach in my final project.

So the idea is to build an air filter utilizing plants stored in a transparent geodesic dome where can be pumped polluted air with a ventilation system air. This polluted air will be purified from plants and then pumped out in the ambient.

These are preliminary sketchs usefull to imagine the final idea:

Milestones to achieve

  • Define how to build the geodesic structure used like a greenhouse over the “filtering landscape plants”;
  • Choose which are the best plants to use for the process of VOC filtration;
  • Design the box that will contain: the pot, the ventilation system(fans and duct) and the electronic stuff;
  • Design the electronic board that will be interfaced with: 1) the VOC sensor and the ventilation fan (filtering system) and 2) the sensors of umidity and temperature used to monitor the ambient conditions inside the greenhouse;
  • Program the base functions of the electronic board: es. ventilation on when VOC level is high, ventilation off when VOC level is low, water demand if needed (depending on the ambient conditions inside the greenhouse).
  • Interface the electronic with an external display panel where it can see monitored values (es. VOC level, temperature, humidity) and where it can set up the level of intervention of ventilation system;
  • Find a cool name to the project.

Extra features

  • Create a system that can move the geodesic filter around the rooms of an house;
  • Connect the the “geodesic filter” with others “geodesic filters” (Internet of things). This connection will create a swarm of filters that could radunarsi in an ambient of the house and improve the filtration of the air.

Organization of the work

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