A Pragmatic Approach Toward Enhancing Indoor Air Quality in Urban Settings With Limited Ventilation

The endeavor of furnishing active indoor air purification in urban settings, characterized by low complexity and real-time operation, is challenging, attributable to the requirement of actively eliminating total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs). In metropolitan regions with a dearth of natural light and airflow, the internal atmosphere may rapidly amass TVOCs, which can create serious negative impacts on human health. To tackle this predicament and advocate for salubrious living, the Internet of Things (IoT) arrangement enabling real-time monitoring of indoor TVOC levels with a cloud-based sensor system and the automated reduction of TVOCs by autonomously operated ionizers is demonstrated. The system is installed and tested on TVOCs common in everyday life in a controlled environment that represents real-life climate-controlled indoor spaces, including realities like leakages in the air-conditioning systems. The investigations derived from calibrated real-time monitoring sensor measurements and subsequent analysis reveal that the proposed closed-loop ionizer system is effective in reducing the harmful TVOC levels by more than 20% with one ionizer and more than 70% with two ionizers in a realistic indoor environment. The results also clearly establish that this system is scalable, as higher ion concentration boosts the suppression of the TVOCs. This proposed method thus clearly establishes an effective way of improving air quality by reducing TVOCs that is progressive and practical to apply in real-life dwellings to improve the well-being of the inhabitants.