Imagine if something as simple as your lampshade could help clean the air inside your home.
Well, some smart scientists are saying it’s possible, and they’ve designed a special lampshade to prove it.
Hyoung-il Kim and his team have come up with a clever idea to fight indoor air pollution.
They’ve made lampshades that can change harmful indoor air particles into harmless ones.
For now, these lampshades work best with halogen and incandescent bulbs, but the team is trying to make it work for LED bulbs too.
You might be wondering why indoor air needs cleaning. The problem is with something called volatile organic compounds or VOCs for short.
These are tiny particles in the air inside our homes and offices, and they can come from a lot of places – paints, cleaners, furniture, and even cooking.
And even though there aren’t many of these VOCs around, we’re inside most of the time, so over time, they can be a problem for our health.
Now, there are already ways to get rid of VOCs inside homes. Some methods use special filters that catch these particles, but these filters need to be changed often.
Other devices use heat or light to break down VOCs, but they can sometimes make other unwanted things in the process. That’s why Kim’s team wanted to come up with a simpler and safer method.
Most of us have bulbs in our homes, right? The interesting thing is that many bulbs, like halogen and incandescent ones, produce a lot of heat.
In fact, they give off more heat than light. This got Kim thinking: what if we could use that heat to clean the air?
The team designed a special coating for lampshades made of titanium dioxide and a bit of platinum. When they put this coated lampshade over a bulb and turned it on, the heat from the bulb activated the special coating.
This coating then went to work, breaking down harmful VOCs in the air. One of these VOCs is called acetaldehyde. When the special lampshade was on, this harmful particle was changed into harmless things like carbon dioxide and water. And for those who might be worried, the carbon dioxide amount is so small that it’s safe.
Kim was excited about the results. He said this was the first time someone thought of using the heat from bulbs to clean indoor air. Most other ideas have used the light from bulbs, not the heat.
Now, the team is looking to make this idea even better. Platinum is a bit expensive, so they’re trying out other materials like iron and copper. The cool thing about using copper is that it’s not just good at breaking down VOCs but also at killing tiny bugs in the air.
But what about LED bulbs? They’re becoming super popular, but they don’t give off as much heat as other bulbs. Kim’s team is thinking hard about this.
They’re working on special coatings that can be activated by the kind of light LED bulbs produce. Kim hopes to make a special coating that works with all kinds of light and heat from bulbs.
In the end, the goal is simple: to make our indoor air cleaner using something as everyday as a lampshade. And if Kim and his team succeed, our homes might just become a little healthier.
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