As countries around the world continue to develop there is raising concern that it’s seriously harming the earth’s health, as air pollution levels increase. Over the years, the levels of air pollution have been relatively consistent but they’re now increasing to harmful levels according to experts.
Luckily, recent reports have suggested that there are developments in technology to help tackle the issue of air pollution rising within city centre environments. It’s important that these technologies can be adapted to reduce this ever-changing world. Here are some examples of emerging technologies that are helping to tackle the issue.
Automatic Vehicles
One technology that is currently developing and continues to develop is the progression of automatic vehicles. The idea would be to stop the nature of “stop-start” actions that we see commonly in traffic due to human characteristics. The introduction of automatic vehicles can improve the efficiency of fuel for anything up to 40%.
Liquid Air
Refrigerated trucks and vans are another concern that are contributing to the increasing air pollution. Technology development is currently in the works to address these issues. According to studies, around 84,000 refrigeration trucks and vans are emitting six times as much nitrous oxide into the atmosphere – 29 times more than the modern truck designs.
Air Purification
Ventilation and ductwork suppliers are working together to help create new technologies to reduce the amount of pollution in city centre environments. A recent breakthrough in technology is the ‘Smog Free Tower’, a development made by a dutch design company. It’s a tower that sucks in the bad chemicals that float in the air and replaces it with filtered clean air. Interestingly, the air that’s sucked in doesn’t completely go to waste as it’s used to make jewellery.
Turning Gases to Liquid
A big push has been put on car manufacturers due to the harmful gases that diesel cars produce. Although electric cars have been a recent trend to help tackle air pollution, there are also alternative fuels that manufacturers can look into.
Petrol company Shell have developed a new fuel called GLT (gases to liquid). It comes from a natural gas which can help to reduce nitrogen oxide levels by up to 35% in heavy duty vehicles. It’s a technology that has already been distributed in the Netherlands and it will be a focus for Shell to make it more widely available in years to come.
Here are just a few examples of technologies that are growing or being looked into to tackle air pollution. The challenge is making sure that these technologies are supported from beginning to end and that the research and solutions live up to their expectations of resolving the issue of air pollution.