NSERC Engage McGill-AirPura collaborative project on sustainable indoor air purification units

空气污染是影响人类健康的一个主要环境因素，在加拿大 ** 和世界各地造成过早死亡。特别是在加拿大，室内和室外空气污染每年给我们的国民经济造成数十亿美元的损失，社会成本甚至更高。根据世界卫生组织 ** 国际癌症研究机构的结论，空气污染是导致 ** 癌症死亡的主要环境原因。空气污染对健康的不利影响会导致心血管疾病、肺病 ** 和癌症 **。室内空气污染在加拿大是一个特别严重的问题，因为由于我们的气候，加拿大人大部分时间都在室内度过。空气净化器是室内空气污染的主要解决方案。室外空气污染物 ** 渗入室内，增加了家庭、办公室和其他建筑物中空气污染物的暴露，增加了室内污染物的来源。为了解决室内空气污染的问题，我们正在与高端空气净化器的领先开发商和制造商之一，总部位于 ** 的Airpura公司建立这种新颖的合作关系。在 **ENGAGE框架内的这一合作的两个主要目标是：** 1.解决Airpura现有空气净化技术的技术挑战，这些技术必须 ** 改进，以提高室内空气中醛和酮的捕获效率，因为他们目前的 ** 增强活性炭/KMnO 4/TiO 2-UV技术的去污性能较低。2. Airpura正在寻求采用可持续技术成为行业领导者，因为目前的不可回收吸附材料是行业标准。我们将对新开发的可回收吸附剂系统进行选定的测试，以评估替代或增加现有技术的潜力，减少传统的，不太环保的成分。

Air pollution is a major environmental factor affecting human health and causing premature deaths in Canada**and around the world. In Canada specifically, indoor and outdoor air pollution is costing our national economy**billions of dollars per year, with the social costs even higher. Air pollution is a leading environmental cause of**cancer deaths, as concluded by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health**Organization (WHO). The adverse health effects of air pollution result from cardiovascular, pulmonary disease,**and cancer.**Indoor air pollution is an especially acute problem in Canada because due to our climate, Canadians spend**most of their time indoors. Air purifiers are a major solution to indoor air pollution. Outdoor air pollutants**infiltrate indoors and increase exposure to airborne pollutants in homes, offices and other buildings, adding to**the indoor sources of pollutants. To address the problem of indoor air pollution, we are establishing this novel**collaboration with one of the leading developers and manufacturers of high-end air purifiers, the**Montreal-based company Airpura. The two main objectives of this collaboration within the framework of**ENGAGE are:**1.To address the technological challenge of Airpura's existing technologies for air purification that must be**improved to increase capture efficiency of indoor airborne aldehydes and ketones, for which their current**enhanced activated-carbon/KMnO4/TiO2-UV technology has low decontamination performance.**2.Airpura is seeking to adopt sustainable technologies to become an industry leader, as the current**non-recyclable adsorption materials are standard industry-wide. We will perform selected tests with the newly**developed recyclable adsorbent systems to evaluate the potential for replacement or addition to the existing**technology with reduction of the traditional, less environmentally-friendly components.