India’s First smog Tower in Delhi

India’s First smog Tower in Delhi

Part of: GS Prelims and GS – III – Pollution 

In news Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated a ‘smog tower’ in Connaught Place and said similar towers would be built across the city, if results of the current pilot project are satisfactory.

• In Jan 2020, the Supreme Court had ordered the Delhi government to build a ‘smog tower’ at Connaught Place by April, 2020, to control air pollution.

What is a Smog Tower?

• The smog tower is a 24 metre-high structure fitted with fans and air filters. This is to solve the problem of Air Pollution in Delhi.
• It will draw in polluted air from the top and release filtered air near the ground through fans fitted on the sides. 
• The tower has 40 big fans and 5,000 filters to clean the air.
• These are electrostatic air filters that can filter out microparticles, including those that constitute smoke, household dust and pollen, according to the project description. 
• A Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system has been installed in the tower to collect data and monitor its functioning.
• This tower has been established as a pilot project 
• The tower will take in air from a radius of 1 km. It has a capacity of cleaning 1,000 cubic metres of air per second. It is estimated that the area will see a rapid change in air quality due to this smog tower.

Do you know? 

• There are different technologies used to clean the air. One uses HEPA filters, (used in indoor air purifiers), which filters PM 2.5 particles. 
• Another uses electrostatic precipitators that attract PM 2.5 particles and collect them at the base of the tower.
• Both would work in closed spaces, but are ineffective in open spaces. 

News Source: TH