The fundamental analysis of smog towers

Your homes may have air purifiers. Air purifiers operate in a very straightforward manner. These are little gadgets that use a fan and internal filter to extract airborne contaminants from a certain space. After that, the room's air is recirculated with purified air.??

The filtering procedure improves indoor air quality continuously by repeating many times per hour.??

Let's now picture an air purifier the size of a structure. A smog tower is precisely an air purifier in an urban space.??

As an air filter for your rooms, a smog tower is for your cities. Information - As of 2022, India has a minimum of eight smog towers, some of which were lesser in size: Anand Vihar (about 80 feet) Connaught Place (about 80 feet; since August 2021)?

How it works and why Delhi needs these inevitably

Multiple air purifiers are found inside smog towers. Simply said, an air purifier consists of a fan and a HEPA filter (high-efficiency particulate air, which may capture hazardous airborne particles). Eight to ten air purifiers make form a smog tower, however they only remove particulate matter; they don't remove gaseous pollutants. Only particulate matter—all of the harmful gaseous pollutants in your air, such as SOx, NOx, CO, and O3—is purified by a HEPA filter by up to 90%.??

The components of a smog tower are:??

Centrifugal pump: To suck air in?

Air filters: filtering out the air?

Fans: To blow the purified air outside?

Questioning Delhi’s and China’s smog towers?

A discussion over the return on investment of each of these towers, which cost about Rs 20 crore, is being sparked by the current condition of increasing investment in pollution towers. Despite almost 100 crores of expenditure, the efficacy of the smog towers in significantly lowering the area's air quality index has not been demonstrated.??

According to information included in the 2020 order of the supreme court, which ThePrint has seen, the smog tower in CP was constructed at a cost of Rs 20 crore and has 40 fans that force air through filtration systems that are 4 meters high and cover the four sides of the structure with a total airflow rate of 960 cubic meters per second (m3/second). The decree also stated that the structure's effective clean air supply rate was 75 million m3/day.?

One example is the smog tower that is situated in China. China's smog towers were ineffective because they could only remove a little amount of particulate matter each day. Despite all the technology that went into constructing it, they took a lot of heat from specialists. India chose to construct its own instead of taking this as a lesson, and it appears that this led to the same evident, unavoidable outcome.?

BIM’s way for smog towers??

The effectiveness of smog towers should be openly evaluated, and emissions should be controlled at the source. More funds should be allocated to tried-and-true methods, and monitoring should be expanded to areas with little to no monitoring. Also, forecasting capabilities should be strengthened throughout cities, open scientific institutions should be partnered with, and city-level emission inventories should be updated. And attention should be paid to improving air quality for urban slum dwellers who use polluting fuels and lack access to clean cooking energy. To pinpoint the main causes of air pollution and create efficient, clean air policies, governments should also make investments in tried-and-true remedies. Additionally, they should further improve their forecasting capabilities and work with academic institutions.?

The conclusion is simple: The performance of smog towers is subject to constant monitoring, especially when the question is about the return on investment in the technology. The BIM technology stack could utilize the Scan to BIM for accurate capture of the smog tower and its components. The thorough reality capture of each of the machinic components and details to the minuscule of dimensions would reflect the true nature of a smog tower. Each of the components, such as the true state of centrifugal pumps, how their air filters are doing with the filtration process, and then the efficiency of fans letting out the purified air, Structures like smog towers are prime examples of why we should deploy digital technology for our urban management needs. Smog towers are actually machines of buildings’ sizes. For more intelligent monitoring, you need a real-time update with your digital records on built-in smog towers. What’s better than a virtual model being modeled on accurate and precise point cloud data and monitored on real-time machine data??

Substitutes for these smog towers: More green structures.?

Conventially, it is claimed that buildings with more plantations are a passive way to emulate what smog towers are devised to do in our urban spaces. Simply the intake of carbon components by plants and its conversion to oxygen. This could be fairly the most simplified way of capturing carbon.??

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However, some other more effective ways could be:?

Carbon capture plants??

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a three-step process that captures and transports carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes to underground storage sites. It helps prevent global warming and is crucial for achieving the Paris Agreement's goals. With 194 large-scale CCS facilities globally, the CO2 capture capacity grew 44% in 2022. CCS has been in operation since 1972 in the US, with natural gas plants capturing and storing over 200 million tons of CO2.?

Timber buildings??

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research predicts that by 2050, the world's population will reach over 9.5 billion, with 70% living in urban areas. To achieve net-zero carbon emissions by midcentury, carbon sinks like timber buildings, specifically mass timber, could be crucial. Mass timber construction can store up to 180 kilos of carbon per square meter, three times more than natural forests. However, it requires new building codes, retraining, expanded manufacturing capabilities, sustainable forest management, and community empowerment.?

More and more new concepts should come.??

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is developing Urban Sequoia, a concept aimed at creating buildings that absorb more carbon dioxide than they produce. The concept involves a physical form optimized for energy reduction and materials that sequester or remove carbon dioxide. The towers will feature algae-filled facades, biological materials, hemp insulation, and built-in air capture systems. SOM is partnering with universities and industry partners to incorporate these elements into new building projects. Roam, a real estate portal, aims to unlock housing affordability by connecting homebuyers with sellers with assumable mortgages. The net effective mortgage rate among all mortgage holders is just 3.60%.?

?Conclusion?

The smog tower approach is a band-aid approach, requiring quick resolution rather than proper fixation. However, urban planners and architects should think of solutions that foster a sustainable urban landscape and lifestyle. Remember, short-term objectives are not solutions but rather an approach to avoiding issues. And a smog tower definitely falls into the former category, and a poorly designed and managed smog tower is even worse.?