The ‘Fine Dust Eater’ from MANN+HUMMEL, mainly meant for the buses, works like a macrophage for the ambient particulate matter in city surroundings. In other words, the fine dust eater literally eats away the external pollutants.
The prototype was unveiled recently in India as part of a range of filters that is used for the HVAC systems and validation is still pending. A stationary version of ‘Fine Dust Eater’ is also already installed and being tested at various places in Germany.
MANN+HUMMEL strongly feels that the fine dust eater be made mandatory with all the State-run buses because the average speed of a city bus is 40 kmph and the fine dust eater is most efficient at this speed.
In the tests conducted in Germany, they have found that roughly 80 per cent of the ambient air is cleaned using these ‘use-and-throw filters’.
In other words, the fine dust eater retains as many particulates that are present in the air as a vehicle with a modern gasoline or diesel engine emits in the combustion process. And if, in a probable future scenario, the State-run buses are fitted with this product, they will clean the air as they move around in a city.
Mr. Ajith Raj Nair, Joint MD, MANN+HUMMEL India, said: “Within the cities, the pollution levels are the highest near the traffic junctions where if there are buildings in the area, it becomes like a pocket of air with no movement of air. We have worked out our product in such a way that the amount of air it sucks and throws out and when it works at a certain period of time, it is able to neutralize the emissions that come out of the vehicle tail pipe, and brakes.”
Mr. Anand S, Team Leader – Engineering, explained: “Even if a vehicle is emission neutral, it will still release residues. In that context, ideally if a product sucks in what is dirty around and in return provides clean air, we as a community, are at least reducing the sin of polluting the environment.”
MANN+HUMMEL also presented its entire cabin air filter product portfolio that includes bio-functional filter, fine dust filter, combined filters and particle filters. These solutions for buses offer better quality of air inside the bus while keeping the maintenance cost low.
Mr. Nair added: “MANN+HUMMEL feels that we have the ideal solution for addressing the air quality issues. Normally, the HVAC systems are fitted on the bus roofs but their reticulated foams lack the ability of quality filtration. Our cabin filters retain the dust and hence keep the cabin clean.”
Mr. Harsha Prakash Gowda working as Expert – Fine Dust Eater with MANN+HUMMEL, added: “The fine dust eater can be mounted onto the metro trains, and trucks that ply through cities besides old goods vehicles, city and highway buses. All these vehicles that ply in the cities emit polluted residue and it is especially high when there is slow moving traffic and most of the time, the drivers do not switch off the engines.”
“Slow engine and high temperatures of the engine emit more carbon from the exhaust. In such scenarios, the fine dust eater can absorb the particulate matter and filter it to an efficiency grade of 80-90 per cent depending on the filter and release cleaner air back into the environment.” he added.
Currently, the fine dust eater is able to clean only the particulate matter. It will require a different filter element to filter out gases. At present, the product weighs around 50-60 kg and efforts are on to reduce the weight further.
As a leading provider of filtration products, MANN+HUMMEL manufactures air cleaner systems, intake manifold systems, liquid filter systems, plastic components, filter media, cabin filters, industrial filters and membrane filters. Besides buses, the range caters to passenger cars, trucks and industrial applications too.