Earth's atmosphere cleans itself no matter what is spewed into it. Matthew Johnson, Professor in atmospheric chemistry at the University of Copenhagen was inspired by the atmospheres self cleaning properties, when he invented the uniquely versatile GPAO (Gas Phase Advanced Oxidation) method of emissions control. Credit: Mikal Schlosser/University of Copenhagen Breathe in Beijing, and you might as well smoke 40 cigarettes a day. Live in London and a significant slice of your taxes go to paying fines for your cities illegal air quality. Be sporty in Santiago but refrain from running out of doors unless rain has recently cleared the air. Air pollution is making city living detrimental to health at an increasing clip. Now a new company with roots at the University of Copenhagen wants to develop clean air solutions for urbanites with greying lungs. The new company, Airlabs, has been licensed to utilize the air cleaning technology Gas Phase Advanced Oxidation (GPAO) developed at Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, by the atmospheric chemist Matthew Johnson.

Professor Johnson has recently been hired by Airlabs as Chief Scientific Officer. A role where he will head the effort to invent research based solutions to problematic city air. Air pollution is chemicals in gas phase. There are few molecules and they are far apart in the gas. For this reason gas is difficult to remove. Previous methods have either burnt, frozen, filtered or diluted the pollution but that is costly in terms of both money and energy. GPAO is inspired by the atmospheres natural self-cleaning process. It utilizes ultraviolet light and ozone to transform gas into dust particles. And where gas was hard to remove, dust is easy, so GPAO requires very little energy, even less maintenance and makes do without a chimney. The University of Copenhagen has already sold a license to use GPAO to combat emissions from industrial polluters. Since 2013 the company Infuser A/S has removed nasty smells from a waste water treatment plant in Aarhus, Denmark, a snack producer in Sweden and an animal feed producer in Jelling, Denmark.

During the latest months the company has also carried out full scale tests, showing the capacity of the technology to remove health impairing solvents from a iron foundry in Germany. Where Infuser A/S concerns itself with solutions for industrial enterprises where the source of pollution is very clear, Airlabs' plan is to deal with the more diffuse pollution found in cities. Towns are pestered by pollution mainly from traffic, where thousands of cars, busses and scooters each give a tiny contribution. sharp air purifier price in uaeFrom heating where many still use coal or wood fired units and from cooking that is still carried out over open fire in many instances.honeywell air purifier au With Airlabs, Johnson expects to develop "Blue sky" zones with clean air for cities. air oasis 1000 sq ft residential air purifier

This might be at the bus stop, on the playground or in the shopping district. Ultimately, says Johnson, whole cities should have clean air. "We do not want to just sell a small black box which removes pollution from a limited area. Ideally we want to develop and sell all-encompassing solutions which secure that you can breathe wherever you are in the cities that buy our solutions", says Matthew Johnson. Together with Infuser A/S, Airlabs plan to provide comprehensive solutions for cities: Emissions control for industrial production enterprises, indoor air cleaning for buildings and outdoor air cleaning. Together the three types of solutions should provide a three legged pollution abatement system able to remedy all and any air pollution problem in cities and towns. Groundbreaking air-cleaner saves polluting industrialsFor more than forty years, the Clean Air Act has cut pollution as the U.S. economy has grown. The emissions reductions have led to dramatic improvements in the quality of the air that we breathe.

Between 1980 and 2014, national concentrations of air pollutants improved 98 percent for lead, 85 percent for carbon monoxide, 80 percent for sulfur dioxide (1-hour), 60 percent for nitrogen dioxide (annual), and 33 percent for ozone. Fine particle concentrations (24-hour) improved 36 percent and coarse particle concentrations (24-hour) improved 30 percent between 2000, when trends data begins for fine particles, and 2014. (For more trends information, see EPA's Air Trends site.) A peer-reviewed EPA study issued in March 2011 found that the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 are achieving large health benefits that will grow further over time as programs take full effect. This chart shows the health benefits of Clean Air Act programs that reduce levels of fine particles and ozone. Reducing air pollution also improves crop and timber yields, a benefit worth an estimated $5.5 billion to those industries' welfare in 2010, according to the peer-reviewed March 2011 EPA study. 

Better visibility conditions in 2010 from improved air quality in selected national parks and metropolitan areas had an estimated value of $34 billion. EPA’s peer-reviewed 2011 study found that clean air programs established by the 1990 CAA amendments are expected to yield direct benefits to the American people which vastly exceed compliance costs. EPA has required dramatic reductions in emissions from new motor vehicles and non-road engines - such as those used in construction, agriculture, industry, trains and marine vessels -- through standards that require a combination of cleaner engine technologies and cleaner fuels. A national system of marketable pollution allowances has dramatically cut power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide, reducing acid rain as well as secondary formation of fine particle pollution that contributes to premature death. Acid rain, which includes wet and dry deposition of acidic compounds from the atmosphere, results from emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Reducing acid rain has significantly reduced damage to water quality in lakes and streams, and improved the health of ecosystems and forests. Between the 1989 to 1991 and 2009 to 2011 observation periods, wet deposition of sulfate (which causes acidification) decreased by more than 55 percent on average across the eastern United States. The dramatic emissions reductions achieved by the acid rain program have helped to reduce atmospheric levels of fine particle pollution, avoiding numerous premature deaths. Government and independent analyses have concluded that the benefits of the program far outweigh the costs, as detailed in the U.S. government's National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) 2011 Report to Congress (PDF). (132 pp, 14.5 MB, About PDF) Multiple analyses show that the cost of the fully implemented program is a fraction of the originally estimated cost - between $1-2 billion annually rather than the $6 billion EPA originally estimated in 1990, according to the NAPAP report.

Further reductions in power plant pollution have been achieved by state and EPA efforts to cut interstate air pollution, achieving additional public health benefits and helping downwind states meet health-based air quality standards for fine particles and ozone. Consistent with a 2007 Supreme Court decision, EPA in 2009 completed a scientific determination that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are reasonably anticipated to endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations and that emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles contributes to this air pollution. EPA's first steps to reduce harmful greenhouse gas pollution focused on motor vehicles. Transportation sources in 2010 were responsible for more than a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.7 EPA and the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration worked together to set greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles in model years 2012-2016 and 2017-2025.

Over the life of these vehicles, the standards will save an estimated $1.7 trillion for consumers and businesses and cut America's oil consumption by 12 billion barrels, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6 billion metric tons. EPA's and NHTSA's standards for heavy-duty trucks and buses, which were issued in August 2011, present large similar benefits. In January 2011, states and EPA initiated Clean Air Act permitting of greenhouse gas pollution from the largest new and modified stationary sources. In the first year of permitting, dozens of large sources such as power plants, cement plants, refineries and steel mills received pre-construction permits for greenhouse gas emissions. On August 3, 2015, President Obama and the EPA unveiled the Clean Power Plan -- a historic and important step in reducing carbon pollution from power plants. 1 Pope, C.A. III, E. Majid, and D. Dockery, 2009. “Fine Particle Air Pollution and Life Expectancy in the United States,” New England Journal of Medicine, 360: 376-386.

2 EPA, Air Toxics Web Site, About Air Toxics. (For the latest information about reducing air toxics, see the webpage, Reducing Emissions of Hazardous Air Pollutants. 3 EPA, Air Toxics Web Site, Rules and Implementation. 4 Mobile emissions estimates are based on modeling runs conducted using the MOVES2010 highway vehicle emissions modeling system and the NONROAD2008 emissions model for nonroad sources, as well as historical and projected activity and emission rate data for aircraft, marine vessels and locomotives. 5 Estimates of the change in national benzene emissions are based on benzene ambient air monitoring data in EPA's Air Quality System (U.S. EPA, 2010), using the subset of benzene monitoring stations that have sufficient data to assess trends since 1994. 6 Mercury emissions data for 1990, 2005, and 2008 featured in table 7 in the EPA 2008 National Emissions Inventory, Version 2  Technical Support Document,  June 2012 draft. 7 EPA, (April 2012) Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks;