As winters set in, major cities in India and across the world are choking on smog caused by vehicular pollution, despite the best efforts from industries and governments. In this scenario, a home grown invention, CentriAirFlow, has won the runner-up prize in the regional round of the world’s most prestigious accelerator program, Clean Tech Open 2018 in California, USA. CentriAirFlow will now represent India at a global event in the final round at San Francisco in January 2019!
Clean Tech Open (CTO) in California, is the world’s leading organization that finds, fund’s and fosters the most promising cleantech start-ups across the globe.CentriAirFlow is the only Indian cleantech start-up that has made it into the final round of this accelerator program.
CentriAirFlow is a complete, practical and ready to deploy the solution to vehicular pollution across the world. It successfully separates and entraps particulate matter (of less than 2.5 microns in size) from engine exhausts, reduces the emission of NOX and CO, saves fuel and can be applied to any internal combustion engine irrespective of vintage or type of fuel used. CentriAirFlow developed by Mr. Adess Singh and Mr. Rajandeep Singh Tiwana holistically addresses the challenges faced by current solutions employed by industries and governments in tackling the air pollution problem.
Adess and Rajandeep have patented CentriAirFlow across US, EU, and India and won many national awards in India. They are now looking for partnerships with governments and industries to take the invention forward and make clean air available for all to breathe.
7 Million people die prematurely every year due to hazardous air quality in major cities, which has been clearly linked to vehicular pollution across different reports. Here is a detail of the problem and misgivings of current approaches to it.
The problem at hand that people are royally ignorant about
The exhaust from engines contains very fine particles of sizes ranging from 1 micron, 2.5 microns to 10micron. (A human hair has the width of 50 microns). These fine exhaust particles are coated with harmful allergens and cancer-causing chemicals called PAH (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons). These small particulates embed themselves deep into our lungs and penetrate blood vessels causing serious health problems. PAH is present only on particulates from engine exhausts and not from residues of fire from farms, which are incorrectly blamed for the hazardous air quality in winters. The particulates from these farm fires are much larger in size and settle down.
Any attempt currently made to resolve the problem has addressed it incompletely. In fact, it requires either massive spends, expensive infrastructure, increased fuel cost, an expensive and impractical overhaul of infrastructure or major change in consumer behavior. The DPF (Diesel Particulate filter) restricts the outflow of exhaust gases making the engine do more work and burn more fuel. The DPF gets choked with soot which needs to be burnt for which fuel is sprayed on it and ignited. This process is called ‘regeneration’; it does burn the soot but particles of even smaller size are generated. Also, the non-burnable or inorganic part remains and permanently chokes the DPF. The DPF needs to undergo expensive servicing and replacement even before one-tenth the life of the vehicle is over. Other than this it entails multiple sensors and controls that make it very expensive. The use of resistive filters to reduce particulates in exhaust paradoxically binds the industry into a negative inverse relationship between particulate emission, emission of NOx and CO. Using presently available resistive filters any attempt to reduce particulates, leads to an increase in emission of NOx and CO and fuel consumption. This is because resistive filters load the engine. A more detailed write up can be accessed through the whitepaper.
- Bharat Stage (BS) – VI Fuel
Billions of dollars are spent on refinery upgrade to produce greener and cleaner fuel. While in itself, this is a laudable effort its effect is marginalized by the sheer number of vehicles currently in use. Worldwide there are over 1.2 Billion 4 wheeled (and heavier) on-road- vehicles, to which 260,000 are added every day. These vehicles have a legal service life of about 15 years. Thus the mere availability of Bharat Stage VI fuel shall have no effect on pollution as it will be mostly used by vehicles of Bharat Stage III or IV.
- The Mirage of Electric Vehicles
It is only natural in the above situation to grab at straws, the world’s reaction towards electric vehicles sums this up perfectly. When electricity generation is itself not green, electric vehicles too cannot be considered green. Both in the United States and in India the greenhouse gas emission for every kilowatt of electricity produced is exactly equal to the emissions for the same amount of energy produced from internal combustion engines. The same is true in China. Changing the way electricity is produced is too far away to be considered in the present
situation.
The Solution – CentriAirFlow:
The innovation eliminates particulate release into the environment by more than 95% and reduces back pressure, to increase engine efficiency by 12-15% thus saving the end-user on fuel Today’s reality is that fossil fuels, despite their ill effects, are still the most efficient and easily available source of energy. This situation, by most estimates, will not change for the next 20-40 years. A practical solution to mitigate the effects of fossil fuels must be easily implementable, save money for all stakeholders, need no expensive and time-consuming infrastructure, need no change in consumer behavior and be usable by all internal combustion engines irrespective of vintage or type of fuel used. CentriAirFlow provides all these advantages. It uses speeds available to exhaust gases to separate and entrap up to 95% of particulates including those less than 1 micron in size. It achieves this without increasing back-pressure (resistance) on the engine. In fact, the clever design reduces back pressure, to increase engine efficiency by 12-15% and thus save the end user money on fuel. Initial tests of the technology brought forth additional benefits of reducing the release of NOx, CO and reducing exhaust noise. CentriFlow retrofits the existing 1.2 billion on-road vehicles irrespective of vintage or type of fuel used.
CentriAirFlow also increases engine efficiency, retro-fits all engines. This is irrespective of the vintage of the engine or type of fuel used (like diesel, petrol, CNG, biogas etc.) And it works with all internal combustion engines (vehicles, ships, furnaces, generators, heavy-duty vehicles, farm equipment, construction equipment etc.) Proof of concept stage testing was conducted on a 3 liter diesel vehicle at ICAT Maneser (New Delhi), through an initial grant from Government of India. The tests clearly proved the claims and showed that entrapment of particles including those smaller than 1-micron size, besides reducing NOx & CO and significantly improving fuel efficiency. Viewing through powerful microscopes it is clear that CentriAirflow actually separates and entraps particulates of even less than 1-micron size. White-colored reference bar shows a size of 1 micron. Particulates of less than 1 Micron are individually entrapped, indicating complete separation in the device. Local agglomeration of individual particles visible as clumps.
A win-win Innovation
CentriAirFlow has the ready ability to positively impact the health of all living beings. It will provide respite to governments in dealing with the embarrassing situation of toxic air in cities. It will enable manufacturers to use their current infrastructure without major changes. It will also enable consumers to continue using their cars at lesser fuel costs and drive green. If clean air is what you want immediately, this is an innovation you should demand from your governments and car companies.
