Mumbai Inventor Trying to Solve India’s Air Pollution By Turning It into Floor Tiles

The Great Pollution Season in India.’ Beginning shortly after Diwali, the figures used to calculate the air quality index spike, crossing the thresholds of ‘hazardous’ and ‘very dangerous.’ Diwali is responsible for a significant portion of Delhi’s air pollution between October and February, prompting the state government to ban firecrackers. 

Then there’s stubble burning in farms in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, which are all nearby states. While the Delhi government has built a number of smog towers to tackle outdoor air pollution, it may be some time before long-term productive results are seen.

The fine particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5) that can enter organs and cause long-term destruction is the most frightening aspect of toxic air. While Delhi was the most polluted capital city in the world for the third year in a row in 2020, the problem is not restricted to Delhi; other Indian cities such as Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata also saw an annual drop in air quality. 

Because there is no one source or factor that leads to the deterioration of air quality, it may be impossible to find a single solution to the problem of air pollution across India. However, a Mumbai-based 23-year-old innovator and social entrepreneur may be on the right track to tackling the problem.

Angad Daryani, a 10-year-old from Mumbai, found it difficult to breathe during football matches due to the dense smog that surrounded the Indian sprawling city. His asthma seemed to be aggravated by the extremely dirty air.

“I used to cough all the time when I used to play outside in Mumbai because of the pollution,” Daryani, now 23, recalls. “I experienced asthma as a child. It made it difficult for me to sprint on the football field.”

India has the worst air pollution in the world. India’s highly toxic air kills more than one million people per year, with 22 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities.

Global warming is adversely affected by air pollution. Black carbon, which can absorb one million times more energy from the sun than carbon dioxide, is a key component of PM2.5. According to experts, lowering pollutants like black carbon can help to reduce global warming and improve air quality.

Daryani is one of a growing number of businesses seeking to clean up India’s skies, inspired by his own personal experience with the detrimental effects of air pollution on his health. His approach is to collect soot and other harmful particles in containers so that they can be recycled into valuable materials like construction tiles.

“It will take at least 30 years to convert all automobiles to electric. Cities will be choked by pollution during this time “We need to filter the air on a hyperlocal scale.” He says

His solution to the problem is deceptively simple: create a low-cost technology for capturing pollutants and converting them into something else.

Daryani invented an outdoor purification system that filters particulate matter and other contaminants from the air while studying engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States. The device sucks in harmful particles and collects them in a container, leaving only clean air behind.

Daryani founded Praan in 2017 after constructing his first device with the goal of creating an affordable and adaptable outdoor air purifier.

Praan’s ambition is to create the world’s first filterless purifier that can clean as much air as possible while fitting into existing infrastructure.

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