Vayu Labs: Design and Development of a High-Throughput, Cost-Effective Indoor Air Purification System for Indian Urban Environments

To design, prototype, and validate a high-throughput, cost-effective indoor air purification system for Indian urban environments.

Existing solutions rely on high-efficiency HEPA filters, leading to low throughput, rapid clogging, high costs, and no gas-phase pollutant removal. Vayu Labs offers higher CADR, faster cleaning, lower costs, and gas-phase removal.

Classroom air cleaning, residential bedroom cleaning, hospital waiting areas, kitchen/cooking areas, and construction-adjacent offices.

Urban air pollution in Indian cities, particularly Delhi, presents a severe and persistent public health crisis. Particulate matter concentrations routinely exceed WHO guidelines by 10–20×, contributing to respiratory diseases, cardiovascular conditions, and reduced life expectancy. Ex- isting indoor air purifiers prioritize high single-pass filtration efficiency (H 13/H 14 HEPA) at the expense of air throughput, resulting in slow room-level cleaning, rapid filter clogging in high- dust environments, and high recurring maintenance costs — making them both ineffective and unaffordable for the majority of Indian households and institutions. This project, undertaken as Vayu Labs, presents the design, prototyping, and validation of an alternativeindoorairpurificationsystemthatmaximizesvolumetricthroughputinsteadofsingle- passfilterefficiency. Thesystemusesa 3-stagefiltrationarchitecture—awashable G 4 pre-filter, an activated carbon with potassium permanganate (ACF-K) sponge for gas-phase pollutant removal, and a medium-efficiency F 6/F 7 main filter — and improves on existing solutions in every key metric: 42% higher CADR (634 m 3/hr vs. 447 m 3/hr for H 14 HEPA), 29% faster room cleaning (t 90 = 3.95 min vs. 5.60 min), 79% lower annual filter cost (INR 11,553 vs. INR 55,233), and gas-phase pollutant removal (88% VOCs, 85% ozone, 75% SO 2 ) that no HEPA-only system provides. The project combines hardware engineering (airflow system design, filter selection, sensor in- tegration, enclosure CAD) with entrepreneurial validation (customer discovery, competitive analysis, institutional go-to-market strategy, and pitch competition participation). The system targets both residential consumers (INR 8,000–10,000 retail) and institutional buyers (schools, government offices) where the cost-per-CADR advantage is most compelling. A seed grant of INR 1,00,000 was secured through the E-Pitch Caf´e 10 th Edition (Budding Star category) to fund prototype fabrication and pilot deployments.

Field of Study: Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Development (aligned with UN SDG 9: Industry & Innovation, SDG 11: Sustainable Cities, and SDG 13: Climate Action)