Indian American invents new kind of air purifier

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NEW YORK – Indian American Yogi Goswami, a professor at the University of South Florida, has found a non-existing air purifier which offers some relief from poor indoor air quality.

Molekule is the world’s first air purifier that completely destroys harmful pollutants whereas other air purifiers just trap such particles.

The device, which could be a probable solution to pollution, has been listed in Time magazine as the ‘Top 25 Inventions of 2017.’

“HEPA (high efficiency particulate absorber) filters remain the standard technology in existing air purifiers and, unfortunately, many harmful pollutants are too small for HEPA filters to trap. Larger pollutants like bacteria and mold may be collected by such filters, but they remain on the filter surface, multiply and are released back into the air. Because Molekule actually destroys even the smallest pollutants, they are permanently removed from the air you breathe,” Jaya Goswami Rao, Yogi’s daughter and the COO of Molekule, told Times of India.

Jaya and her brother Dilip converted the patented technology developed by their father, into a consumer product that uses Photo Electrochemical Oxidation (PECO) technology.

PECO is a light-activated nano filter that creates a catalytic reaction on the surface of the filter that breaks down pollutants at the molecular level, thus destroying allergens, mold, bacteria and viruses, removing microscopic pollutants 1,000 times smaller than a HEPA filter.

Goswami earned his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from what was then known as the Delhi College of Engineering (now Delhi Technological University), he decided to develop such an air purifier about 20 years ago when his son Dilip was struggling with asthma.