State capital successfully tests innovative City Air Cleaner

In the past five days, the prototype of the new type of City Air Cleaner was already parked for the second time on the city ring road in Kiel. In a second step, the effect of the technical outdoor air purification was now tested with the prototype. The aim was to determine whether the City Air Cleaner should be included in the new Clean Air Plan as a pollutant-reducing measure to ensure compliance with the required EU limit value of 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air for the average annual nitrogen dioxide pollution.

In the first test operation on site, which lasted several days, the representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency of the state capital (Landesumweltamt)  and the Ministry for Energy Transition, Agriculture, Environment, Nature and Digitalisation (MELUND), which is responsible for the preparation of the local Clean Air Plan, had the opportunity to convince themselves of the functioning of the innovative outdoor air purifier.

The measurements were carried out with Purevento’s certified mobile measuring device, an Airpointer, which was used freshly calibrated. At the beginning, the Airpointer was placed directly next to the stationary measuring station on the Theodor-Heuss-Ring in order to compare the measured values. After ensuring that the real measurements of the pollutant and weather conditions of both devices matched, the actual series of measurements on the effectiveness of the City Air Cleaner could begin.

From 3 to 9 April, the measuring device was first placed directly behind the City Air Cleaner in order to measure the purification performance of the four-stage filter system at a nominal capacity of 40,000 cubic metres per hour and to compare it with the technical data. The measuring device was then moved to the facade of the house and shifted sideways several times. Interval measurements were carried out regularly at all measuring positions during the whole period in order to quantify the effect of the City Air Cleaner under different traffic loads and meteorological influences.

The MELUND and the Air Hygiene Monitoring State Agency of Schleswig-Holstein (LÜSH) accompanied the Purevento measurements. The results were so satisfactory that the next step was to request a forecast of the cleaning performance for the entire 200-metre stretch of road with the City Air Cleaners. Such an environmental assessment by a state-certified expert is based on microscale modelling of local atmospheric chemistry and meteorology and serves as evidence of the effectiveness of an air quality measure in the Clean Air Plan.

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