Team:Mingdao/Description
Proposal for submitting to GenScript
Problem:
High concentration of carbon dioxide in enclosed space make people feel sleepy and even dizzy.This can even result in
(1) fell asleep during class.
(2) driver may fell asleep, causing accident to happen.
CO2 analysis:
In order to prove the seriousness , we measure the CO2 concentration in enclosed spaces and analysis the results.
If the concentration of CO2 is between :
● 350~1000 ppm, the air is fresh
● 1000~2000 ppm, people feel the air turbid and start feeling drowsy
● 2000~5000 ppm,people feel headache,lethargy, sluggishness, heart beat
hasten, mild nausea
● above 5000 ppm, it may cause severe hypoxia, coma..
picture(1):
picture (1) is the result of our measure in a simple single room(only one person inside an enclosed space with air condition on .) According to the picture,the concentration had reached to 1000 ppm in a hour. While the subject felt asleep, it slowly declined(We speculate CO2 may leak out from the gaps,and the rate of venting is bigger than the rate of producing.)Until getting up next day,the speed of breathing was back to normal.
picture(2): picture(2)is the result in a regular car with four people in. In eleven minutes, the concentration in the car had increased from 2353 ppm to 4660 ppm.
The result shows if staying in a unventilated room for a long time will have bad influences to our health.(the more people there are,the more CO2 is produced.It may increase the rate of CO2 production and make the problem even worse.)
The problem of excessive CO2 concentration is indeed widely exists in our daily life and may have badly influenced our health.So it is important for people to solve these problems.
Current method: we have gone to National Chung Hsing University,Taichung,Taiwan to search for current methods and come up with a better way.
Physics-Physical absorption: (1) Using organic or inorganic solvents(For example: Propylene Carbonate,, and ocean water.) as absorbents (2) Using solid absorbents,such as carbon or Zeollte to absorb carbon dioxide. Disadvantages: (1) The absorption is deteriorated due to the sulfide, causing the number of regeneration to lessen. (2) The absorption isn't effective Chemistry-Chemical absorption:
● The chemical reaction between the absorbent and carbon dioxide is used to recycle CO2,and the reverse reaction is used to regenerate the absorbent. ● Disadvantage:There are many operational variables,making it more cumbersome to operate. Biology-biological absorption:
● Taking advantage of photosynthesis in plants. ● Disadvantages: (1)The efficiency is low (2)The caring is time-consuming. (3)The growing condition of the plants are unpredictable
Our approach:Since the solubility of CO2 is low in water, we combine biology and chemistry method, inserting the gene that can produce carbonic anhydrase(CA, which can increase the solubility of CO2 in water) into bacillus subtilis. T hen use light and high photosynthesis efficiency algae to purify the water quality.
Comparison:Physics and chemical methods must be done in lab, while our approach can be used in any place. The physics method needs very large space in the application place especially, comparing to our device, it’s light and portable.
