CP’s air cleaner than before

The air around Connaught Place is said to be cleaner now after an air-purifier station installed there by a private firm cleaned 99 per cent of the toxic air pollutants over a period of 35 days.

The air around Connaught Place is said to be cleaner now after an air-purifier station installed there by a private firm cleaned 99 per cent of the toxic air pollutants over a period of 35 days.

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Manufactured by the Italian firm, ‘Systemlife’, the purifier, which is equipped with a laser spectrometer Grimm, collected nearly 2 kg toxic particulate during 860 hours of air monitoring.

“The system had collected more than 20 trillion particles comprising harmful compounds such as carbon, silicon, chlorine, zinc, aluminium, etc., since March 6, says the monitoring report,” said P. Garibaldi, a scientist with Systemlife.
“But the output air has been found to be almost perfectly clean.”

The machine, a first-of-its-kind in India, was installed in association with NDMC in Connuaght Place, near Palika Bazaar. It captures fine particulates created by fuel combustion and pollutants produced by the stopping, idling and acceleration of vehicles.

The machine is used across Europe, but this is the first time it is being used in India. “The results are still being analysed and once that has been done we will decide whether to go for public private partnership for the funding to install more such purifiers,” said Parimal Rai, NDMC chairman.

The company has proposed the government to set such purifiers in ITO and most of the metro stations. Particulate matters, microbe charges and pollutants from the air pass through a five-stage filtering process and release clean air in the atmosphere by working as a deodoriser.

From the health and environment point of view, the most dangerous dust particles are those having a diameter of less than 10 microns (PM10), which have the ability to penetrate the deepest parts of the lungs, the scientists said.