Performance validation of a non-photocatalytic air purifier built by reactive adsorbent against a commercial UV-based air purifier

A portable non-photocatalytic air purifier (AP) was built by modifying a honeycomb-type ceramic (HC) filter through immobilization of a reactive adsorbent (i.e., manganese dioxide (MnO2 (1 wt%))-Universitetet i Oslo (UiO)-66-amine (NH2): namely, M-U6N). This non-photocatalytic AP system was examined for the removal gaseous formaldehyde (FA) at room temperature (RT) in a 17 L airtight chamber. The kinetic reaction rates (RW, & mu;mol h-1 g-1) of AP (M-U6N), when measured at 10%, 50%, 90%, and 100% of its removal, were 631, 433, 191, and 114, respectively. This non-photocatalytic AP system fully mineralized FA to CO2 and H2O through the Mars-van Krevelen (MvK) mechanism with a significantly higher (i.e., 1.6-3.3 times) kinetic reaction rate (RF, & mu;mol h-1 filter-1) than that of its UV-based AP counterpart. As such, based on our experimental performance validation, the non-photocatalytic AP system developed in this work was demonstrated to be superior to the commercial photocatalytic AP system in the treatment of gaseous FA. The findings of this study offer practical guidelines for the fabrication of cost-effective non-photocatalytic AP systems.

Automated summary

A portable non-photocatalytic air purifier was constructed using a honeycomb-type ceramic filter modified with a reactive adsorbent (manganese dioxide). The air purifier successfully removed gaseous formaldehyde at room temperature in a 17 L airtight chamber. The non-photocatalytic air purifier exhibited higher reaction rates compared to its UV-based counterpart.