At the Industrial Technology Conference in Vienna, Austria, on October 30, Corning won the Horizon 2020 Clean Air Material Award from the European Commission for an innovative air cleaning solution.
The Horizon 2020 Clean Air Materials Award with a prize of up to 3 million Euros was awarded by the European Commission to the most economical, sustainable and innovatively designed materials solutions designed to reduce particulate matter concentrations in urban areas.
Dr. David Morse, CTO of Corning: "This award is a high recognition of the innovation and cooperation of Corning's R & D and engineering teams in Europe and China. The Corning teams in both countries successfully upgraded the vehicle exhaust filtration technology we invented 40 years ago into a Prototypes that can be used in indoor air ventilation systems and large outdoor air treatment systems, effectively clean particulates in the air even in urban areas with the highest levels of particulate matter. This is an important milestone and an award.
So how does Corning's air purification technology help reduce particulate pollutants in the air?
Particulate matter pollution is one of the biggest environmental challenges facing human society. The average life expectancy of humans is reduced by 8.6 months due to exposure to particulate matter pollution caused by human activities.
Only 36% of particulate pollution comes from concentrated source pollution including industrial emissions and exhaust emissions, while the remaining 64% comes from dispersed source pollution. (Data source: World Health Organization, 2015)
In order to control scattered sources of pollution, Corning invented a ceramic air particulate filter, referred to as APF. Its unique honeycomb structure can provide a higher specific surface area, and its dust holding capacity is 10 times higher than that of traditional fabric filters. It can be washed more than 20 times and maintain reliable performance through washing, and its service life is expected to exceed 20 years.
The large outdoor air treatment system developed by Corning uses ceramic air particulate filter panels as the filter medium, and also uses a modular design, equipped with high-performance fans, filter regeneration systems and online monitoring systems. The full-sized large-scale outdoor air processing system can provide 3.6 million cubic meters of clean air every day, continuously capture particulate matter, and continuously deliver clean air to the city.
This air purification technology can be integrated into the fresh air system of large indoor spaces to protect dense and vulnerable people from particulate pollution, including hospitals, schools, shopping centers, stadiums, etc.
It can also be arranged in an open or semi-open environment to capture particulate matter near the source of pollution, such as highways, industrial parks and residential areas.