Education, Environment

Peruvian University Creates Air-Pollution Cleaning Billboard

Pollution-cleaning panel, UTECThe University of Engineering and Technology, known for building the world’s first potable water-producing billboard, has come up with another ingenious invention: a billboard to reduce air pollution.

The fledgling university, founded in 2011 and known as UTEC, created the billboard in order to reduce air pollution at a construction site in downtown Lima. It has also set up a similar billboard at the construction site of its future campus in Barranco.

A video posted on the website Designboom.com, said the billboard’s “purifying structure filters the air as effectively as 1,200 trees.” This is equal to about 3.5 million cubic feet of fresh oxygen per day.

“The technology attached to the billboard absorbs the pollution, filters it using thermodynamics through a specially designed water system, which then returns pure O2 to the atmosphere at up to a five block radius,” the website said.

The thermodynamic machine used for the process uses 2.5KW of electricity per hour.

Dust kicked up at the many construction sites around Lima can be a health concern for workers and neighboring residents.

The news of UTEC’s billboard follows a report this week by the World Health Organization that said Lima has the worst air pollution (see report here) of any Latin American city included in an extensive study on global air quality in urban centers. Most of Lima’s pollution, however, is caused by vehicle traffic.

The UTEC has attracted attention before. The university created a billboard that captures the mist that floats of Lima, turning it into potable drinking water. The supply of safe drinking water in Lima, the world’s second biggest desert city, is a major challenge.

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