Daylight Investigations

Air Purification Generator

Students

Mariam Morsy, Nada Yaakoub

Teachers

Khaled Tarabieh

School

The American Universityin Cairo

Country

Egypt

Air Purification Generator
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Project Description

Air Purification Generator Hay El Zabaleen is a well known city in South of Cairo in Egypt, which name translates to “The City of Garbage”. While visiting the site we discovered the inhabitants' working habits and their lifestyle routine. A family’s financial and social status depends on both parents, the father collects garbage from all over the city and comes back to his household with a truck full of garbage, which is then emptied in the house’s court where both the mother, father and if applicable children could start sorting the different components. Usually, carton papers are placed together, plastic is assembled alone, cans and containers are divided into categories. After sorting, some elements remain, mostly organic food waste which produces a very strong odor. The food waste is then collected and used to feed the pigs which are located at a walking distance from the housing units. All of this process happens during the day under the hot and ardent sun causing health problems to workers such as sunburn, dehydration etc… Our objective is to create a multipurpose shading device which would solve all of the issues that were mentioned above. The prevailing wind comes from the North direction where the pigs are located, and would carry the smell of the pigs as well as the organic food waste to the South, where the workers are sorting. The shading device will be a structure composed of two essential parts: the vertical that contains the plates and the horizontal that will support the photovoltaic cells which will generate the power. As the wind moves from North to South with a positive pressure, it collects the evaporated volatile organosulfur compounds emitted by the food waste and carries it to the “sandwich” plates in order to treat the air quality. The horizontal part of the shading device will support the photovoltaic cells, which will generate power through the collection of solar energy. The power will be transformed into electrical energy that will be used as the source of power for the chiller plate. Also, the horizontal part of the shading device will cover the working space to improve working conditions. On the other hand, the vertical component will create a condensation process in between a hot plate (with small openings to let wind in), and a cold plate. The liquid created during the process will be collected in a socket that will be placed in between both plates. The water collected will be neutralized in order to treat the bad odor and would be filtered for recycling purposes. The outer face of the shading device will be covered by plants which would be irrigated by the recycled water and would also add another layer of purification. Through this shading device, we will treat bad odors coming from the pigs and organic food waste by neutralizing the organosulfur compounds through condensation. This process will be generated by the power collected from the sun through photovoltaic cells.