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The filter heats air to 200 degrees. I assume the air would have to be cooled afterwards. Is that going to use an insane amount of energy or is there some tric
by joe_the_user 6y ago
The filter heats air to 200 degrees. I assume the air would have to be cooled afterwards.
Is that going to use an insane amount of energy or is there some trick to heat and cool without that much energy (a la air conditioning).
- redisman 6y agoAir conditioning exhausts a lot of heat. Maybe it can reuse some of that. I might be missing some weird physics scaling though if you're air conditioning 200F temperature air maybe a normal A/C can't handle that.
- dbcurtis 6y agoNo, the filter is heated to 200C, not the air. They don’t say what the temperature delta of the air is after passing through.
- joe_the_user 6y agoGood point, though if air continually passing through, the temperature delta would be significant.
- praptak 6y agoThe article says the virus is deactivated at 70C, so the air itself should probably get to 70C plus perhaps a safety margin. Come to think of it, if you coupled that with a heat exchanger, the filtered air could pre-heat the incoming air and get cooled in the process. This way the filter would only have to transfer enough heat to make up for the inefficiency of the exchanger. I'm not sure if this is feasible.
- dTal 6y agoIt's probably perfectly feasible - it's the same working principle as a dehumidifier, except temporarily heating instead of temporarily cooling. Just reverse the polarity and you're set!
- adrianmonk 6y agoA filter might be easier to install in an existing forced air system. The main problem that needs to be solved is how to eliminate the virus between now and when a vaccine is available. So solutions need to be something that can be manufactured quickly and dropped in as a replacement for a component of an existing system.
- sizzle 6y agoWouldn't the filter simply be placed on the air intake side prior to passing through the HVAC coil and being cooled? Why heat the air after it is passed through the coil and is cooled?
- feyman_r 6y ago>>> By making the filter electrically heated, rather than heating it from an external source, the researchers said they minimized the amount of heat that escaped from the filter, allowing air conditioning to function with minimal strain.
- danans 6y agoIf it's heating the air stream to kill the virus, I don't understand the difference between "electrically heated" and "heating it from another source".
- pcl 6y agoI interpreted that to mean that the heating elements are within the structure of the filter, rather than essentially putting the whole thing in an oven.
- mihaaly 6y agoThe minimal mean minimal to other heating alternatives not being insignificant. Air flowing through a hot item will be warmed significantly, this is how electric heaters work!
- mihaaly 6y agoThis is practically an electric heater. It might be a fire hazard and I wonder if fine burned residue particles (chemicals) escaping the 'heater' and circulated with airflow have further health risks.
- woliveirajr 6y agoI remember a product called Sterilair, created back when I was a child, that would simply heat air to 270ºC inside a ceramic honeycomb. https://www.sterilair.com.br/ https://www.sterilair.com.br/
- jiofih 6y agoIt even uses the same materials, though in a much easier to build arrangement: a nickel filament through a tube, and gets convection as a bonus.
- sizzle 6y agoYes the warm air passes through the HVAC coil and is cooled?