Air pollution crushed by 81% at a heavy manufacturing plant!

Air quality inside factories and heavy manufacturing plants can be hazardous if not handled appropriately. In addition to process and engineering controls, capture & ventilation systems, and good plant hygiene, facility-wide technologies such as Pure Skies can markedly improve air quality inside plants.

Figure 1: Pure Skies (center top grey box) mounted on a pedastal inside a busy factory. Yes, we like it when our customers put Pure Skies on a pedestal.

How Pure Skies crushed air pollution inside a factory by 81%

A heavy manufacturing company in Maharashtra, India was worried about poor indoor air quality inside their 18,000 m2 facility. The company manufactures earth moving equipment, resulting in very high particle pollutant levels (PM2.5 and PM10) due to heavy welding (32 welding stations using manganese and copper), metal cutting, and buffing.

Despite an investment of Rs. 60 lakhs (USD 86,000) in fume extractors and ventilation, indoor air quality was hazardous, with 24-hour average PM2.5 and PM10 both exceeding 300 mcg/m3. That’s twice as bad as Delhi, even on a bad air day! Peak levels of these particle pollutants were much worse, reaching the 1200-1600 mcg/m3 range each working day.

One Pure Skies 6000 unit was installed on a pedestal in the center of the factory. The footprint was small (only 1’x2’), and power requirement was a modest 30W (peak). A high-end air qu

ality monitor* was installed at an appropriate distance and height from the welding area. Installation took 45 minutes.

After 6 weeks, Pure Skies reduced 24-hour average levels of PM2.5 and PM10 by a whopping 81% and 70%, respectively (Figure 2)!

Figure 2: Improvement in PM2.5 (left) and PM10 (right) after installing Pure Skies in a heavy manufacturing facility. The red bar indicates baseline values for each pollutant - very high in this case. The green bars depict weekly average values after Pure Skies is turned on. The large decline in pollutant values between the 2nd and 3rd week (green bars) represents when the Smart Technology was turned on.

During the first two weeks, the reduction in pollutant levels was modest (26-35%) – typical of Pure Skies during its start. But once our Smart Technology kicks in – at the end of Week 2 – Pure Skies crushes pollution** and we see huge improvements in air quality between Weeks 2 and 3. Pollution reduces incrementally thereafter.

For our Smart Technology to work, we had to consider a number of factors: the number of workers, shifts, and welding stations; the amount of weld wire consumed; and factors beyond the plant environment such as weather and traffic density. This data is used to adjust the Pure Skies algorithms – how our pulsed radio waves are broadcast – with real time feedback on efficacy.

Pure Skies is the most advanced air purifying technology available for cleaning the air. It uses pulsed radio waves in the Wi-Fi spectrum to affect small particles (and aerosols) < 20-25 microns in diameter, accelerating their clearance through a process called dry deposition. Our pulsed radio wave technology is well suited for improving air quality in both indoor or outdoor environments.

Anyone working in a factory where metalworking is done knows that it can be dirty. Welding and other metalworking operations generate fumes containing manganese, lead, hexavalent chromium, and other toxic compounds. Well-designed source capture and facility-wide systems can go a long way in improving air quality inside plants, providing the safest and healthiest working environment possible for employees.

Today, our customer continues to enjoy markedly better air quality, 24x7. There is no adverse impact on plant operations from Pure Skies, and the unit operates silently year-round.