Envinity Group
Tackling air pollution with a giant vacuum device
A team of Dutch inventors has unveiled a giant air-cleaning vacuum that they say filters out fine particle pollution from the surrounding air. It's a large industrial filter about eight meters long, made of steel - placed basically on top of buildings and it works like a big vacuum cleaner. The device can suck in air from a 300-meter radius and from up to four miles above and can clean 800,000 cubic meters of air an hour. It filters out 100 percent of fine particles and 95 percent of ultra-fine particles, based on prototype tests carried out by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands. Fine particle pollution, created by the burning of fossil fuels and industrial processes, can cause serious respiratory health problems like asthma and even cancer and 90 percent of European residents are exposed to levels above those recommended by the World Health Organization, according to the European Environment Agency.