Air purifying

After years of development Dyson has launched its first foray into the wearable market unveiling one of the weirdest products we’ve seen in a long time. Called The Zone, Dyson has combined noise-cancelling headphones with a built-in air-purifier.

LG has updated its PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier mask by incorporating a microphone and speaker to make it easier to talk. The new device will appear first in Thailand in August with other parts of the world to follow.

In urban environments, it's not uncommon to see cyclists wearing masks that filter out airborne pollutants. The Iwind is a little different, though, in that it actually blows purified air onto the user's face.

So far, Dyson hasn't made any headphones, but a recently-published patent shows that its engineers are certainly thinking about it. And these cans are designed to provide the wearer with a steady supply of filtered air.

A new solar-powered catalyst made of graphene and titanium dioxide nanoparticles can pluck pollutants out of the air, much more efficiently than others. The catalyst could be coated onto building or street surfaces to improve air quality in cities.

New research is suggesting the claim that house plants improve indoor air quality is wrong. The research concludes it would take hundreds of plants in a small space to come close to the air-purifying effects of simply opening a couple of windows.

Researchers at Rice University have developed a new air filter made of graphene foam, which can kill captured microbes with small zaps of electricity.

We all know that houseplants help purify the air inside a home. If you don't have a green thumb, though, you may still be in luck – Ikea has developed curtains that are claimed to clean indoor air, utilizing a process similar to that which occurs in plants.

​While plants do help clean the air within a home, it is estimated that over 20 per room would be required to make a difference. That likely wouldn't be the case with a new genetically-modified ivy, however, which has proven to be highly effective at removing chloroform and benzene from the air.

Two new products from Wynd are suggested to be the ultimate in home air purification – Halo, an app-controlled sensor that can monitor specific pollutants in the air, and the Home Purifier, a massive air cleaner that can quickly clear contaminants from large spaces.​

​First installed in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and then moving onto Beijing in 2016, the pollution-sucking Smog Free Tower is now headed for a park in Poland. Part of a wider project aimed to highlight the need for cleaner air in urban centers, the tower will be put to work in Kraków.

​​Although only at the proof-of-concept stage right now, scientists in Belgium have come up with a way of capturing polluted air and converting it into power in the form of hydrogen gas, a technology that could prove a two-pronged environmental panacea.