Introducing the World's Largest Air Purifier

Air purifiers are found in homes all around the world – from the likes of Dyson and IQair. China, however, have taken the game to a whole new level – creating a giant air purifier. Standing 328ft, it makes the average 100cm high indoor air purifier look a little miniscule. Read on as we take a closer look at China’s super-air-purifier.

So, what is this giant air purifier exactly?

Almost identical to the ones you find at home, China’s air purifier intends on cleaning its surrounding air – just on a much larger scale. The tower works buy sucking in polluted air through glasshouses at its base. Heat from the sun then creates an upwards flow of the air, which passes through multiple cleaning filters before exiting the tower at the top.

This isn’t the first of its kind. China previously owned a 23ft air purifier which produced 8 cubic meters of clean air per second. But it required large amounts of energy generated from coal-fired power plants, which contradicts its original purpose. The new, much larger model in the Shaanxi province of China is believed to require much less energy as it’s being powered from the sun in daylight hours.

Does it actually work?

Despite the effectiveness of the tower being a subject of ongoing monitoring, the lead researcher Cao Junji has said they have seen some improvement in the quality of surrounding air. In its first few months, the tower has produced 10 million cubic meters of clean air each day.

Data collected from multiple pollution measuring sights in the city revealed that the amount of polluted air had dropped by 15% since the tower became active. And this is only the beginning. Bigger reduction are expected, with Junji stating that ‘the results are quite encouraging’.

Future developments

A full detailed report on the success of the tower is expected to be released in March 2018. But this seems to be the step forward China needed to combat their deadly smog, which claimed the lives of 1.8 million people in 2015.

If the results demonstrate a significant reduction in air pollution, the technology can then be implemented all over the world, alongside other methods that aim to treat emissions and remove or filter out pollutants like mercury. Especially in countries who have some of the highest air pollution levels including Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Qatar.