Air purifiers were a popular purchase during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, as people became increasingly concerned with viruses and other airborne pathogens.

At the recent CES show in Las Vegas, Israeli startup Airovation Technologies unveiled a new division, Airosphera, which will enable air purifier manufacturers to add artificial intelligence-based technology to make smarter indoor filters.

Airosphera’s algorithms use biosensing to monitor the heart rate, breathing and daily routine of people in an enclosed space.

The data, collected from up to one meter from the device, automatically modifies how the purifier works based on individual human parameters. A Bluetooth-connected mobile phone app can be used to change the settings manually.

Among those parameters is the amount of carbon dioxide in the room. An accumulation of CO2 (a natural byproduct of breathing) can impact cognitive performance, concentration and even quality of sleep.

Ever wonder why people in a meeting room or students in a classroom tend to get drowsy? Maybe it’s not just because the topic is boring!

Superoxide radicals

In nature, superoxide radicals neutralize viruses and bacteria and convert harmful gases into clean air. Airosphera’s parent company, Airovation, was founded by Marat Maayan to commercialize a technology developed by chemistry Prof. Yoel Sasson at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to produce superoxide radicals in a lab.

For Airovation, the superoxide radicals in question are oxygen molecules containing an additional electron. Normally, oxygen has 12 electrons and is a very stable molecule. The additional electron makes it “radical,” meaning that it is no longer steady and seeks to bind with other molecules or to release that electron to other molecules.

In that sense, “the superoxide manages to stop CO2 pollution by converting it through a synthetic photosynthesis-like process into oxygen and fertilizers for new vegetation,” Maayan tells ISRAEL21c.

Superoxide radicals typically exist for just split seconds before they bind. That makes them difficult to work with.

Sasson’s methodology generates superoxide radicals in a liquid phase, so they last for “tens of minutes,” Maayan explains. “That creates the opportunity for us to work with it as a tool.”

Sasson and Maayan realized that if superoxide radicals were applied to the toxic smoke and exhaust emitted during industrial operations, they would bind to the excess carbon and remove it from the air.

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