UNIT-IV

Air Cleaning Brick

LECTURE-10
ARC 1105: Advanced Materials

Prepared by Department of Design

Rohit Kumar
Air Pollution in Indian cities
India has the world's worst air pollution. Home to 22 of the world's 30 most
polluted cities, India's toxic air kills more than one million people each year.
PM 2.5 air pollution caused around 54,000 premature deaths in New Delhi in
2020, according to by Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
Pollution Free Brick or Breath Brick
In Cairo, an annual temperature inversion brings a fog of dust and burning
biomass called the Black Cloud. When Carmen Trudell began researching the city’s
air quality problems five years ago, she thought about her brother’s treatment for
kidney failure: What if a building, like the organ, could filter toxins and protect
people?

She is working as Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic State University, San

Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), and worked with students and fellow environmental
engineering associate professor Tracy Thatcher to develop a building component
that could double as a passive filtration system. The product would be easy to
construct and work without electricity to allow its use in developing countries.

It works on the principle of Vacuum cleaner.

Centrifugal force development
due to circular motion of air.

Particles collide due to

centrifugal force

Working

Its working principle is borrowed from cyclone filtration method.

The system is composed of two key parts:
1. Concrete bricks
2. A recycled plastic coupler, which both helps to align bricks and creates a route
from the outside into the brick’s hollow center.

The Concrete bricks themselves feature a faceted surface which helps to direct
airflow into the system, and a separate cavity for inserting steel structure.

Coupler helps in aligning the blocks and it

creates the route for polluted air to enter
into the block. Internal baffles are
provided to induce directional flow of air
within the chamber. It also provide
connection to another cyclonic chambers.
 Breath Brick Assembly

The breathe brick is an
assembly of 4 modules which
are joined together by
coupler. The first module
consists of cyclonic separator
and cavity for reinforcement
bars.
The second module The third module The fourth module
which has waste tube consists of cyclonic consists of only cavity to
and reinforcement separator ,waste tube insert reinforcement
cavity is kept close to and reinforcement bars. These 4 modules
the first module and cavity. The third unit is are combined together
they are connected by kept above the first and to function as the
coupler. second modules. purifying unit.

Step 01 Step 02 Step 03 Step 04

 Application in other systems

Solar chimney

Geothermal heat exchange

 Finally

In wind tunnel tests, the system was found to filter 30% of fine particles (such as airborne pollutants) and
100% of coarse particles such as dust.

As the entire system is relatively inexpensive, the Trudell posits the Breathe Brick as a way to lower
pollution levels in developing countries, where rapid expansion of industry and less stringent environmental
regulations often cause problems.
References:
https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/rtf-fresh-perspectives/a794-alternative-materials-pollution-absorbing-
bricks/
https://www.architectmagazine.com/awards/r-d-awards/citation-breathe-brick_o
https://www.irjet.net/archives/V7/i4/IRJET-V7I4523.pdf
https://tutorialstipscivil.com/civil-drawing/air/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_India
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health