A Concept of a Novel Solar-Assisted Large-Scale Cleaning System (SALSCS) for Urban Air Remediation

Abstract

A solar-assisted large-scale cleaning system (SALSCS) is proposed for air pollution abatement. The system consists of a large-scale flat-plate solar collector, a chimney, and a filter bank. In the basic configuration, an air flow is driven exclusively by buoyancy generated in the collector–chimney system, and PM₂.₅ and larger particulate matter is separated from the air in the filter bank. The proof of concept is obtained by means of a transient 3D numerical simulation of fluid and heat flow for a full-scale system, implemented in ANSYS Fluent and performed using high-performance computing techniques. The effects of the filter bank on the system performance including heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics are evaluated by studying two system configurations, without and with a filter bank, respectively. The proposed SALSCS system is predicted to be capable of processing atmospheric air at a flow rate of 2.64 × 10⁵ m³/s, corresponding to the volume of 22.4 km³ of polluted air remediated in 24 hours.