Net gains: IIT students plan to keep PM2.5 out

NEW DELHI: While Delhi’s air quality continues to worsen, staying indoors is hardly an option. That said, the air inside your home is not as pure as you may assume it to be.





Students of IIT-Delhi have now come up with a nano-fibre mesh window that restricts entry of dust and pollution particles as small as PM2.5 into homes. This water-resistant fibre net doesn’t limit the air flow, but provides respite from pollutants.

Pollution Net, developed by students and alumni of IIT-Delhi and incubated at the institute’s Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer, is a continuation of their Naso-filter product, which was displayed at IIT’s Open Day last year and will be launched on World Pollution Day on Sunday, in the presence of doctors from AIIMS and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

“While naso-filters get attached to nostrils and limit the inhalation of pollutants, this net limits a number of pollutants, including PM 2.5 particles,” Prateek Sharma, co-founder of the company incubated at IIT, said.

Sharma added that indoor pollution was as bad as outdoor pollution and, while people took measures to protect themselves outside, they were careless at home.

Arun Sharma, professor of University College of Medical Science, said the environment outside would definitely have an impact inside homes and offices. He added that there was always an exchange of external air at home. Usually pollutants like PM2.5 are present in rooms, which are not clean, and if an interaction takes place, the quantity of pollutants increases. “It is troublesome for those already with respiratory diseases,” he said.

Last year, Delhi University had conducted a year-long research where it interviewed and surveyed 900 people in several households of different economic stratus.

Conducted by the Environmental Science Department of Delhi University, the study revealed that those in the lower and higher income groups were more susceptible prone to dangers of indoor pollution owing to design flaws in homes, poor air circulation and lack of understanding.