The Airora Pyramid

A ‘sustainability’ journey

 

 

It is well documented that product manufacturers have historically contributed to creating adverse environmental impacts through the old model of ‘produce it, use it and dispose of it’, without consideration of deleterious environmental, human or broader economic impacts.

At Airora, we develop our products in the context of sustainable objectives. Those objectives are to benefit society, the environment, and the economy over their entire lifecycle, from the selection of materials through to final disposal.

The role of regulatory and advisory limits regarding Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

Regulators are only just beginning to take sustainability into account, their primary role is to create performance boundaries within which products must safely operate.

Regulations and guidance vary greatly worldwide, not just in their scope but also in the limits and / or requirements they set.

At Airora we charged the UK’s Building Research Establishment (BRE) to review worldwide Indoor Air Quality regulatory and advisory limits, for example around ozone, formaldehyde, airborne particulates and the like, to establish a framework within which our technology must perform to allow it to be safely used in each and every regulatory jurisdiction.

However, Airora went further, much further. Having established the IAQ regulatory and advisory boundary, Airora aspired to not just fall within that boundary, but to do so by a wide margin in each and every case.

BRE’s brief was then to test our technology against those more restrictive self-imposed limits. Subsequent testing led to a series of technological changes with the result that, on almost all measures, Airora falls more than 75% below any limits, and it never exceeds 50% of any regulatory or advisory limits, however strict.

Sustainable manufacture and supply

Repairability

Airora products can be dismantled for repair. During the product warranty period your Airora can be returned to your supplier for repair or replacement.

Outside of the warranty period simple maintenance issues, such as lamp replacement, can generally be undertaken by the owner.

Where a product is unrepairable, we dispose of it in such a way that the materials used are recycled in accordance with the WEEE EU directive (see below)

Materials and Recyclability

Material selection and recyclability are key aspects of sustainability.

Wherever they are available and suitable, we select materials that can be recycled, for example recyclable plastics that can be re-processed and re-used in future at the end of product life.

Airora complies with the EU’s ‘Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive’ (WEEE) worldwide.

That Directive sets targets for the collection, recovery and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment. Our product manuals advise how to best ensure that your Airora product is usefully recycled at its end of life.

Hazardous materials

Airora complies with the EU’s ‘Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive’ (RoHS) worldwide.

That Directive restricts the use of specific hazardous materials found in electrical and electronic products. This Directive also supports the product’s effective recovery, reuse and recycling.

In compliance with RoHS, all Airora’s components contain either none or far less than the maximum prescribed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium and two specified flame retardants.

Embodied Carbon

Embodied carbon means all the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emitted in producing materials. It's estimated from the energy used to extract and transport raw materials as well as emissions from manufacturing processes.

To properly calculate the embedded carbon, a detailed inventory of all aspects of manufacture and supply must be carried out, including, for example, the carbon intensity of the electrical grid in the location(s) of manufacture and the nature of the transportation of each and every component. Clearly this is a highly complex process which is rarely carried out and is difficult to maintain 100%.

However, it is somewhat simpler to broadly compare the relative impact of similar products, with a similar manufacturing overhead / complexity, particularly where the differences in the amount of material employed is significant.

For example, compare the Airora Pyramid and a high end air filter, the MAXVAC Medi 4e, which share a similar functional scope and application volume.

	Airora Pyramid Hydroxyl Diffuser	MAXVAC Medi 4e Filter
Weight	1.6 kg	8.5 kg
Room Size	Up to 80m3	Up to 76 m3
Dimensions	31x31x20 cm	42x22x63 cm
Noise Level	< 30dB	55dB
Energy Consumption	30 W	80 W

 

Although totally eclipsed by Airora in performance terms, the MAXVAC Medi reflects the upper end of traditional air filters which were purchased for a similar functional purpose. Both contain fans, PCBs, wiring etc. and both are principally typically constructed from plastics.

However, the weight of the Airora is only 1.6kg and of the Medi 4e is 8.5kg (530% greater).

The difference in weight of material is a good fist estimate of the difference in embodied carbon. If the Filter contains metals that increase weight that is broadly fairly represented in the comparison as aluminium and steel have significantly higher embodied carbon than plastic of the same weight.

The comparison filter air cleaner weighs 5.3 times the Airora Pyramid, implying circa 530% more embodied carbon.

Packaging and Shipping

Airora achieves its superior performance, not just using less material than a traditional air cleaner, but while also being physically far smaller.

For example, compared to the Medi 4e above, Airora archives far superior outcomes even though it only occupies around 33% the Medi 4e’s physical volume.

Thus, the Airora Pyramid’s packaging is not just entirely recyclable (no foam, no expanded polystyrene), it only requires circa one third the material and thus has only one third of the embodied carbon / environmental impact.

Further, the carbon impacts arising from shipping the Airora product are also only around one third of those from shipping the Medi 4e.

Sustainability in use

Energy Use and CO2 emissions

As the Airora Pyramid only employs a fan to gently distribute trace levels of aromatic oil which naturally distribute throughout the room by molecular diffusion, independent of air movement. The Medi 4e, in common with all filters, requires a far more powerful, and far noisier, fan as it attempts to force the air from far flung corners of the room through itself.

Consequently, the Airora only consumes 30W of power, whereas the Medi 4e consumes 80W of power, 266% more. Unless the power is carbon free, this represents 266% greater carbon emissions.

Noise

The noise emitted by ‘air cleaners’ is a sustainability issue because air filter’s operational noise levels are typically > 50dB to achieve their already limited functionality.

As Airora’s fan is only there to gently distribute trace levels of aromatic oil, its operational noise level is < 30dB, which meets the requirement of 30 dB maximum for a bedroom.

As dB is a logarithmic scale, 50dB is four times the sound volume of 30dB and 100 times the sound intensity of 30dB.

To meet the 30dB requirement portable air cleaners typically have a ‘sleep mode’ whereby the fan speed is much reduced and their already limited air cleaning ability is even further diminished.

In effect, in ‘sleep’ mode, all of the embodied carbon of a filter air cleaner is performing only a very limited purpose.

Consumable

The Airora Pyramid employs a small, recyclable, glass bottle containing Linalool, an entirely natural aromatic oil distilled from plants and flowers.

The Medi 4e requires large replacement filters, manufactured from synthetic materials, every 4 months (more frequently in dusty conditions).

Over a year, Medi 4e’s filters cost circa twice the cost of Airora’s linalool.

 

You can find out all about Airora at airora.com

And contact us at support@airora.com