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Grad Student Rigs Cheap Alternative To $1,000 Air Purifiers In Smoggy China
An anonymous reader writes "University of Virginia grad student Thomas Talhelm was living in Beijing on a Fulbright Scholarship during the winter of 2012-13, when air pollution was so bad scientists likened it to a nuclear winter. Those who could afford it were resorting to an expensive solution: air filters costing up to $1,000. Talhem built his own on the cheap, getting comparable particulate count results, and has started a company that both markets the product to middle class Chinese and shows others how to DIY."
He straps a filter on to a fan and this is noteworthy? Ok then.
Make sure everybody knows who created this idea.
Otherwise, as with all governments, the Chinese government will just commandeer production and distribution, and take all the credit for bettering the world.
before I even clicked the link I thought to myself "what did he do, hook a filter up to a fan?"
How is anybody supposed to make money like that? Won't someone think of the shareholders?
But, seriously, that's pretty awesome and surprisingly simple.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Wouldn't it be simpler to strap the air filter to the smokestacks where the pollution is emitted? Nah, that'd never work.
He strapped a filter to a fan and managed to filter air... slow news day?
It would be cheaper for everyone to just fix the pollution problem by putting heavy restrictions on emissions. Seriously, $1000 dollar air purifiers to remove the debris put in the air to save $0.05 on scrubbers is stupidity of the highest order. In a lot of cases the scrubbers are already on the factories because Chinese law requires them, just doesn't require that they be in operation. In about a year China could dramatically reduce this pollution to western world levels with simple installing or activating scrubbers on smoke stacks.
This continues to show China is a pay for play game, in that you are well connected enough in the communist party and laws and environmental rules just don't apply and it doesn't matter if it kills the little people.
Maybe China should try reducing the pollution at the source
a guy put a filter on a fan. The story is that China, the most populated place on earth, has 1.3 billion people who couldn't come up with something as simple as a fan in front of a filter. Let that sink in.
A lot of ideas are obvious once somebody announces what the idea actually is. Honestly, I think that people who would criticize the inventor simply because of the idea's apparent simplicity or obviousness are being rather snobbish, if you ask me.
But hey.... some might find it comforting to think that such values, which might otherwise seem outdated in today's word, are still alive and thriving in our society.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I have a Blue Air filter, new $300-400 US , something in that price range. Replacement filters $50-60 for HEPA. Dang.
I've already done the same thing. I had an air purifier where the proprietary filter was dirty and clogged. I couldn't find a replacement, so I just used a 3M Filtrete furnace filter trimmed to size. I suppose if you have central air on all the time, just having a good furnace filter would suffice.
A lot of ideas are obvious once somebody announces what the idea actually is.
In this case it's just plain obvious. Try doing a google image search for air filter fan.
Yet, nobody else thought of selling it for cheaper to Chinese countries. Heh.
I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
This isn't something that becomes obvious in retrospect. I think -many- of us know how air filtration systems worked, I certainly did. :)
Maybe if I lived in China I'd try to be selling the systems cheaply, too
If he's never seen one before, it's ingenious. I've seen one (years ago) so it seems obvious to me. *shrug*
That you know how it works doesn't change the fact that you didn't actually implement it as a solution for China's air pollution before he did.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If it was so obvious to you, then why didn't you suggest it before he did?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yeah they're called scrubbers, a well known and often legally mandated invention.
Box Fan + Filter. Posted 6 years ago
Box Fan + Filter. Posted 3 years ago from a university
Not sure if these are the same thing. If it is, then it's sad this knowledge isn't more common place to help people out.
That you know how it works doesn't change the fact that you didn't actually implement it as a solution for China's air pollution before he did.
Of course I didn't. I don't live in China. I live in a country that enforces air purity laws. It's a blindingly obvious solution to a problem I don't have.
Go on AliExpress, there are loads of cheap air purifiers with HEPA filters. TFA says "up to $1000", and actually even high end Japanese models are usually much less than that. Chinese manufacturers sell many models that are basically the same as what this guy invented - a HEPA filter strapped to a fan - for $30-40.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Are you sure about that? Other than this one article what makes you think that all or most Chinese citizens with air filtering fans were paying $1000 for them?
... that way we can pretend nothing is really happening. And the industry to make the filters? Produces pollution to do so... A cycle of foolishness.
because I was unaware that the going rate for filter units in China was $1000, and therefore didn't realize that there was a problem that this was a solution for.
Probably because he doesn't live in China.
This is China we're talking about, with 1.3 billion people. I'm sure that people have already strapped filters onto fans, this one guy just happens to be getting some feel-good-DIY publicity because he's marketing his product. Kudos to him because it seems like a good thing that he's doing this, but I would be amazed if this is actually considered novel in China.
I've been doing this for years when I paint in my garage ... I'm not saying I'm brilliant but not everyone thinks of things as being this easy so some people need to be told.
I was refilling the refrigerant in my truck A/C with Propane last night... My neighbor came out with an "ummm, what are you doing?" look...
Which is my point.
Somebody had to think of the idea first... cut the guy some slack.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Go to Amazon and look for HEAP air fliters for home use. You will find models from $50 to $250.
Yeah, A LOT of people have had this idea and brought products to market.
The product described does not solve the problem of air pollution in China but provides a possibly cheaper way to get clean air in a closed room. There is a slight difference between these two issues.
A lot of ideas are obvious once somebody announces what the idea actually is. Honestly, I think that people who would criticize the inventor simply because of the idea's apparent simplicity or obviousness are being rather snobbish, if you ask me.
But hey.... some might find it comforting to think that such values, which might otherwise seem outdated in today's word, are still alive and thriving in our society.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with my boss the other day.
Boss: Why did it take 2 days to write about 100 lines of code? That should have taken an hour or so.
Me: The same reason it took you 3 months to write a 10 page grant proposal and not the 30 minutes I could retype it in.
Fair point... more accurately, it would be a means of coping with China's air pollution than an actual solution to the underlying problem.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I somehow would think that being ignorant of what the underlying problem might be would generally preclude a solution being particularly obvious to them, except in retrospect.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Part of what makes this informative to me, as a sensitive breather, is that he used a Dylos Air Quality Monitor to detect particle pollution. It only costs $200 for the base model and it was the key to his measured success. That's news to me since last I checked these sensors cost on the order of thousands of dollars. The sensor cost has been reduced by 10X. As a sensitive breather it helps to quantify and measure why you are being so affected. I have actually bought one due to this story and look forward to hopefully measuring the air in places where I have trouble breathing and seeing a correlation.
I know it does not detect chemicals, does anyone have suggestions for a approx. $200 sensor that does?
I have been to the doctor and the doctor simply tells me to avoid the areas where I have breathing problems. Being able to measure this and show others instead of just saying that I am short of breath would be nice on many levels. If this monitor's readings correlate with my breathing problems then I may as well try using the cheaper filter design as well, perhaps using the higher-end IQ Air Replacement filters.
Thank you!
My point was that the obviousness of a solution depends heavily on whether the observer has seen the solution before or is making it up from scratch. It seems to me that the visible characteristic of an 'obvious' solution is that when you tell someone the problem ("this air filter costs $1000") they come up with the answer immediately, without much thought ("why not just take a box fan and stick a filter on it?"). Not knowing a problem exists does not necessarily make the solution non-obvious, just irrelevant. For example: suppose you don't know the sink is overflowing. "turn off the water flow" isn't relevant to you because there's no point, but is it any less of an obvious solution to the actual problem?
Living is a basement apartment in Boston I had problems with particulates from the street. I removed the window screen, installed a filter in its place, and mounted a window fan on the inside. Whole house air filter and didn't even need the box. 15 years ago, I claim prior art if he patents it.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
I breathe all the clean air through my bong :)
There are reasons to want to own an air purifier even if you live in a place that doesn't have tons of pollution.
The most common would be allergies. If you get a decent one, it can nab pollen out of the air no problem. This can make living in a place where you have allergies to something much more tolerable.
They also help with dust accumulation. I live in the desert so we get lots of particles in the air, humans or no humans. An air filter can help clean that up. Makes it easier to keep the house clean.
Also the real good ones can get bacteria, even viruses, they filter things so small. So it can help limit the spread of disease in your house. Not a silver bullet by any means, but it can help keep the could a kid brought some from spreading.
Not saying China doesn't need to clean up their act, but these things weren't made because of their problems. The big names in it are western anyhow. IQAir (Switzerland) and Austin Air (US) are probably the two best known for high end, small units. In particular if you are talking a $1000 unit, that's IQAir. Their filtration is clean-room levels of good.
You idiots. These filters you're talking about cost 1000RMB, not 1000USD! 1000RMB is about $150. I know, because I live in Beijing and use them. Now, is that easily affordable for most people here? No. But check your facts first for fuck's sake.
You can see it right in the Slashdot thread where people link to Youtube videos of this being done a long time ago. The idea of "stick a filter on a fan" isn't new because that's PRECISELY what air filters are. They don't make any bones about it.
So, why doesn't everyone do it? Well because it turns out DIY isn't much cheaper if you want it to work well. When I first heard of the idea, on Youtube, I said "let's try that!" Went and got out one of my box fans, bought a filter at Home Depot, and taped it all together. Well I quickly discovered two flaws with this system:
1) Furnace filters aren't near as good as HEPA filters, particularly not the multi-stage system good units have. It did reduce particle count, but not a ton. I could buy better filters, for sure, but then the cost goes up. Buying a filter with a large surface area like good units have gets quite expensive, much like the filters they have themselves.
2) A regular fan is not well suited to the static pressure you get trying to push through a filter. It had very little airflow. Better sealing would have helped some of that, but of course that's more money and effort, but part of it is you just need a good fan. That is again one of the things that the high end units have. They have a fan particularly made to deal with high static pressure, and a case made force lots of air through the filters.
So easier, and not really any more expensive in the long run, to just buy a filter unit. On the cheaper end of things, there's Austin Air units. Basically you pay $250 for a metal box with a powerful fan in it, and another $250 for a huge filter. Every 5 years or so, you pay another $250 for a new filter. Not the world's best filtration stats, but pretty good, better than furnace filters, and cheaper when you look at how long it lasts. At the high end that's IQAir. $1000 for a unit, but the unit and filters last a long time. I particular their HEPA filter can last a decade or more, provided you replace the prefilters when it tells you to.
That's the thing here: This is NOT a new idea, people were talking about it online a minimum of 6 years ago, and it is also not a hard idea since it is literally doing what the filters do. They are simple devices, they have diagrams of how they work on their websites. The cost is in a good fan, and good filters.
Finally, with regards to particle count, you need to be careful that you specify what size and have a counter that can deal with it. One of the reason IQAir units cost so much is they filter extremely tiny particles, like clean room level, viruses and so on. That is much harder to do than larger stuff. Now maybe you don't care, ok fair enough, but don't try and act like it is the same level of performance. You can very well get cheaper air filters that don't filter as well, or as small a particles.
I don't see how we can point the finger when most of us don't personally change the oil and oil filters in our cars.
You mean the gigantic[citation needed] on the summary/headline?
So, I did a cursory search on Google and what I've found was that the lowest priced filter was around 1500 RMB*. Now, according to that table, it is easy to see that the pricier ones perform better and can handle larger amounts of air. There seems to be an issue with formaldehyde (HCHO), which the pricier ones seem to remove more than the cheaper ones. Wikipedia seems to think that HCHO is harmful to human health, but I'm no expert and we all know how reliable wikipedia is for facts (it suffices, though).
So, no. Not all air purifiers are 1000$. However, the ones that provide around 96% (which seems consistent with what would be a HEPA filter) and also filteer for that formaldehyde at a similar rate are the more expensive ones.
What this does show is that the summary is lacking information and we are being fed an apple to oranges comparison. Smart Air's website seems more sensible than the summary (what was I thinking, this is slashdot), at least mentioning that the filter is an alternative only if your only concern is particle pollution.
Also, I need to stop taking the summary at face value.
* other articles found in the search suggest that those values are not false
I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
How about a punch in the mouth?
All you so quick to laud the democratization of breath forget the law of unintended consequences.
By facilitating breathing in a super-polluted hellscape like that, he's reducing the impetus they might have had to CLEAN THEIR SHIT UP! Great job. Now people who can afford his device will be able to breathe, not just the rich, but the poor, the ones who can't even afford rice, how do they afford this thing? So they can continue to live in a veritable sea of garbage, and instead of getting better, it maybe gets worse, and by the way, there's no great wall around the pollution choked areas, which means that airborne garbage will slowly filter (no pun intended) out of there and help poison other people around the world.
Of course, I am typing this on a computer that was made in China... so maybe I too am part of the problem. :(
Awesome! Now he needs to be encouraged to fix central air conditioning - yet another overly priced commodity that should be simple and widely available for 1/10 of what is being charged.
I've done something similar, but I also tossed in a cheap 5kV ion generator and a grounding screen. You put the filter on the pull side, the generator in the middle and the grounding mesh on the push side and it does a decent job of filtering out particles and making the air smell fresh. You can get everything you need at Home Depot, except for the 5kV circuit, which is like $5 online.
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