\’Trial air purifier cleans up to 97 per cent dust particles\’

NEW DELHI - An air purifier installed in the heart of the national capital in March has shown that the air had particles of uranium, lead and arsenic and that the filter cleans 95-97 percent of dust particles of an area in a day, experts said here Tuesday.

An initiative of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the purifier was made through a tie-up with Italy\’s Systemlife, aimed to improve the air quality in the city. It was installed at Rajiv Chowk March 6 next to the metro station.

Nano-pathology experts S.Montanari and Antonietta.M.Gatti analyzed the efficiency of the technology.

\”In Delhi we found particles of uranium, lead and arsenic. High levels of these can cause severe damage to the human body like cancer, deformities and organ dysfunction,\” Montanari said at a press conference Tuesday.

A 35-day experiment to see if the filtering station could reduce airborne concentration of dust particles and other pollutants was conducted and the results were released Tuesday.

\”The officials from Systemlife have shown that this purifier cleans 95-97 percent of dust particles of a specific area every day. The level of lead particles in the air is very high as per their report and this is due to the vehicles, which emit huge quantities of these poisonous substances,\” P.K. Sharma, health chief of the NDMC, told IANS

He said that the results of the experiment had been sent to to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Ministry of Environment and Forests for scrutiny after which a decision would be taken on installing more such purifiers in the city.

Pier Pablo Garibaldi , a scientist involved in making the purifier, said the filter could clean 10,000-15,000 cubic metres of air per hour, \”capturing upto 97 percent of all particulate matter\”.

The purifier is an electricity-driven unit using a five-stage filtering process.