Objective
This proposal is targeted to help a very large group of European SMEs right across the Agri-Food Production Sector. These are the companies that produce and suffer from airborne organic particulates, in the form of ultra-fine dust or smoke, which have adverse biological effects when inhaled. These organic emissions, which are generated during at all stages - the production of livestock, the manufacture and drying of food, and the preparation of food in restaurants and food service institutions - pose a common health threat for a number of reasons:
Allergenic effects of organic materials ingested;
Nutrient effects of the materials for bacterial growth;
Live Bacterial content of some materials such as animal dusts;
Adsorbed irritants such as ammonia or volatile organic compounds.
The hidden cost to European business is immense:
2 billion pa lost by pig farmers due to lack of live weight gain due to respiratory syndromes;
1 billion pa lost by poultry farmers to campylobacter and similar ailments;
240 million per year in treating human respiratory problems due to air quality alone; and this on top of the disposal of up to
1.25 billion of contaminated filters every year. Our idea is to develop a novel high efficiency, high capacity filter that will both capture and destroy any type of active organic particulate or noxious gas. It will remove the material from the air stream, including the ultrafine particles that are increasingly regarded as the most harmful, and render it harmless through an automatic heating and plasma generating step, leaving it inert and ready for disposal, or even ready for automatic in-situ destruction. The technologies used are a novel multi electrode precipitator design and a unique multi functional medium that adsorbs gases and traps large particles, and can be activated by an electric field to produce plasma.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringthermodynamic engineering
- natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryvolatile organic compounds
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringair pollution engineering
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsfluid mechanicsfluid dynamicscomputational fluid dynamics
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
Call for proposal
FP6-2003-SME-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
COOPERATIVE -Coordinator
MELTON MOWBRAY, LEICESTERSHIRE
United Kingdom