A device
invented by an Indian American professor Yogi Goswami has been named as world’s
first air purifier that completely destroys harmful pollutants. The air
purifier, called Molekule, has been featured in the list of top 25 inventions
of 2017 by Time magazine.
Molekule scores
over existing technology such as HEPA filters, which only trap the pollutants,
and don’t destroy them. “HEPA filters remain the standard technology in
existing air purifiers and, unfortunately, many harmful pollutants are too
small for HEPA filters to trap,” Jaya Goswami Rao, Yogi’s daughter and Molekule
chief operating officer, was quoted as saying by the Times of India. “Larger
pollutants like bacteria and mold may be collected by such filters, but they
remain on the filter surface, multiply and are released back into the air.
Because Molekule actually destroys even the smallest pollutants, they are
permanently removed from the air you breathe.”
Yogi, a
professor at the University of South Florida, began his research for new technology
for air purifiers in the 1990s. He migrated to the United States from Delhi in
1969 for his PhD. Yogi got his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from
what was then the Delhi College of Engineering (now called Delhi Technological
University). He was motivated to pursue this line of research as his son
Dilip struggled with asthma. Dilip and Jaya were born in the United
States.
Twenty years
later, he found the solution — Molekule. His son and daughter, Dilip and Jaya,
co-founded Molekule and converted the patented technology developed by Yogi
into a consumer product. The purifier has Photo Electrochemical Oxidation
(PECO) technology, which is a light-activated nano filter to create catalytic
reaction on the surface of the filter that breaks down pollutants — allergens,
mold, bacteria and viruses — at a molecular level.
According to
Jaya, third-party laboratories like the University of Minnesota and the Aerosol
Research Engineering Laboratory have tested and verified the technology. A
four-week study with 49 allergy sufferers showed that they “experienced a
dramatic and sustained reduction in their symptoms over the entire testing
period.” The results were presented at the ACAAI (American College of Asthma
Allergy and Immunology) Annual Conference 2017.
Each unit costs
$800 (approx. Rs 51,500). They raised $10.10 million in Series A funding
earlier this year. “During the Northern California wildfires, we exhausted our
entire inventory in two weeks,” Jaya said.
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