Patent Application
20210331006
The present disclosure relates to air purifiers and, more particularly, to portable air purifier devices.
The personal air purifier device is generally in the form of masks that cover the users' nose and mouth area. Users often experience discomfort within a few minutes of wearing the device due to low pressure and moisture build-up. The mask of the device may also become clogged with dust quickly and needs to be replaced frequently.
Some users wear face shields that do not clean the air but rather only block or bar large infectious aerosol droplets suspended in the air, for example, respiratory droplets traveled into the air from cough, sneeze, talk, shout, or sing, etc. Smaller aerosol particles, however, can remain airborne longer and flow around the face shields more easily to be inhaled. In addition, the airborne pollutants may not be filtered out by the face shields either. Thus, they are not a substitute for respiratory protection.
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
The present disclosure generally provides a portable air purifier device that mounts on a user's head without covering the user's face area. This device may include an air-flow control fan, an air purification system such as electro-static precipitator (ESP), an air crossflow limiter, an air quality sensor module, and a head-mounting mechanism. In a feature, depending on the amount of pollutants and pathogens present in the environment, some example devices may be fitted with a different number of ESP units connected together to achieve desired air purification efficiency. In further features, the air-flow control fan of the portable air purifier device regulates the rate at which air flows into the air purification system to achieve a desired level of air purification and user comfort. In further features, the air cross-flow limiter of the portable air purifier device blocks dirty air and microbes from entering the user's nose or mouth from the sides and from the front. In one example, the air cross flow limiter takes the form of a see-through visor covering the user's face on either side and extends downwards to cover the user's nose and mouth. In further features, the air quality sensor module of the portable air purifier device measures one or more air quality parameters such as particulate matter level, humidity level, and ozone level in the location of the user and provides feedback to the portable air purifier device to adjust air purification function and intensity. In further features, the head-mount of the portable air purifier device holds the entire device firmly on the user's head.
Further areas of applicability of the present disclosure will become apparent from the detailed description, the claims and the drawings. The detailed description and specific examples are intended for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure.
The present disclosure will become more fully understood from the detailed description and the accompanying drawings.
In the drawings, reference numbers may be reused to identify similar and/or identical elements.
A personal air purifier built in miniature form to mount on the user's forehead or head area makes it convenient for the user to breathe normally without any difficulty, by not blocking the user's nose or mouth area.
ESP 120 includes an ion sprayer 124, and a metal dust collection chamber 126. The fan 122 is equipped on an external side of the base enclosure 106 and takes in dirty air and feeds the dirty air to the metal dust collection chamber 126. The ion sprayer 124 placed at the front of the dust collection chamber 126 creates a high intensity electric field inside the chamber 126 that destroys pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. The ions emitted from the electric field bond with the dead pathogens and harmful pollutants such as particulate matter in the air and attach to inside metal walls of the dust collection chamber 126. The cleaned air comes out through the air outlet 128 and sprays towards the user's nose area. The entire ESP unit is placed inside the base enclosure 106 that may be, for example, an air-tight enclosure to prevent any leaks and mixing of dirty air from outside with the cleaned air.
As shown in
A built-in air quality sensor module 130 at the air outlet 128 measures the various characteristics of the air at the air outlet 128 including dust level, humidity, and/or temperature. This example air quality sensor module 130 may contain one or more of three different sensors: a Particulate Matter (PM) sensor, a humidity sensor, and/or an ozone sensor. The PM sensor measures the particulate matter concentration surrounding the user and can turn the air purifier ON when the PM level exceeds the WHO safe limit, [mow] and turn the air purifier OFF when the PM level is lower than the WHO safe limit. When the user is moving and the PM sensor notices increasing levels of pollution, the device 100 can throttle up the air purification intensity. When the PM sensor notices that the air quality is within WHO safe limit, the air purification intensity is throttled down. The second sensor in the example air quality sensor module 130 can be the humidity sensor. When the sensor detects water spray or rain on the air purifying device 100, the device 100 can shut itself OFF to prevent any damage to the electrical circuitry of the device 100 and more importantly, for the user's safety. The third sensor in the example air quality sensor module may be the ozone sensor that can shut off the device in case the air purifying device malfunctions and generates unsafe levels of ozone.
The air purifying device 100 can be well-suited for outdoor use with a rechargeable battery to make the device wire-free and portable. The air purification process is power-intensive; hence air purification is turned ON only when needed. Also, based on real-time feedback from the air quality sensor, the air purification intensity is adjusted to achieve a desired air quality and not over-exerted, in order to conserve power/battery drain.
As shown in
Multiple Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) units can be connected in series to improve their performance efficiency. The air coming out of one ESP unit is fed as an input to the next ESP unit to do another round of dust and microbe removal. In a highly polluted environment, multiple ESP units connected in series can significantly increase the air purification efficiency.
ESP units can be inter-connected and arranged in various shapes such as V, L, C, U.
Further, an air purification system may include multiple (e.g., more than three) ESP units that are connected in parallel to increase the output air flow rate at any given air purification efficiency. This is suitable for environments where higher air flow rate is desired such as when the device is used to clean a larger space such as a room versus a person's face area.
The foregoing description is merely illustrative in nature and is in no way intended to limit the disclosure, its application, or uses. The broad teachings of the disclosure can be implemented in a variety of forms. Therefore, while this disclosure includes particular examples, the true scope of the disclosure should not be so limited since other modifications will become apparent upon a study of the drawings, the specification, and the following claims. It should be understood that one or more steps within a method may be executed in different order (or concurrently) without altering the principles of the present disclosure. Further, although each of the embodiments described above as having certain features, any one or more of those features described with respect to any embodiment of the disclosure can be implemented in and/or combined with the features of any of the other embodiments, even if that combination is not explicitly described. In other words, the described embodiments are not mutually exclusive, and permutations of one or more embodiments with one another remain within the scope of this disclosure.
Spatial and functional relationships between elements (for example, between modules, circuit elements, semiconductor layers, etc.) are described using various terms, including “connected”, “engaged”, “coupled”, “adjacent”, “next to”, “on top of”, “above”, “below”, and “disposed”. Unless explicitly described as being “direct”, when a relationship between first and second elements is described in the above disclosure, that relationship can be a direct relationship where no other intervening elements are present between the first and second elements, but can also be an indirect relationship where one or more intervening elements are present (either spatially or functionally) between the first and second elements. As used herein, the phrase at least one of A, B, and C should be construed to mean a logical (A or B or C), using a non-exclusive logical OR, and should not be construed to mean “at least one of A, at least one of B, and at least one of C”.
In the figures, the direction of an arrow, as indicated by the arrowhead, generally demonstrates the flow of information (such as data or instructions) that is of interest to the illustration. For example, when element A and element B exchange a variety of information but information transmitted from element A to element B is relevant to the illustration, the arrow may point from element A to element B. This unidirectional arrow does not imply that no other information is transmitted from element B to element A. Further, for information sent from element A to element B, element B may send requests for, or receive acknowledgements of, the information to element A. The term subset does not necessarily require a proper subset. In other words, a first subset of a first set may be coextensive with (equal to) the first set. In this application, including the definitions below, the term “module” or the term “controller” may be replaced with the term “circuit.” The term “module” may refer to, be part of, or include processor hardware (shared, dedicated, or group) that executes code and memory hardware (shared, dedicated, or group) that stores code executed by the processor hardware.
The module may include one or more interface circuits. In some examples, the interface circuit(s) may implement wired or wireless interfaces that connect to a local area network (LAN) or a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Examples of a LAN are Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Standard 802.11-2016 (also known as the WIFI wireless networking standard) and IEEE Standard 802.3-2015 (also known as the ETHERNET wired networking standard). Examples of a WPAN are the BLUETOOTH wireless networking standard from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group and IEEE Standard 802.15.4.
The module may communicate with other modules using the interface circuit(s). Although the module may be depicted in the present disclosure as logically communicating directly with other modules, in various implementations the module may actually communicate via a communications system. The communications system includes physical and/or virtual networking equipment such as hubs, switches, routers, and gateways. In some implementations, the communications system connects to or traverses a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet. For example, the communications system may include multiple LANs connected to each other over the Internet or point-to-point leased lines using technologies including Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and virtual private networks (VPNs).
In various implementations, the functionality of the module may be distributed among multiple modules that are connected via the communications system. For example, multiple modules may implement the same functionality distributed by a load balancing system. In a further example, the functionality of the module may be split between a server (also known as remote, or cloud) module and a client (or, user) module.
The term code, as used above, may include software, firmware, and/or microcode, and may refer to programs, routines, functions, classes, data structures, and/or objects. Shared processor hardware encompasses a single microprocessor that executes some or all code from multiple modules. Group processor hardware encompasses a microprocessor that, in combination with additional microprocessors, executes some or all code from one or more modules. References to multiple microprocessors encompass multiple microprocessors on discrete dies, multiple microprocessors on a single die, multiple cores of a single microprocessor, multiple threads of a single microprocessor, or a combination of the above.
Shared memory hardware encompasses a single memory device that stores some or all code from multiple modules. Group memory hardware encompasses a memory device that, in combination with other memory devices, stores some or all code from one or more modules.
The term memory hardware is a subset of the term computer-readable medium. The term computer-readable medium, as used herein, does not encompass transitory electrical or electromagnetic signals propagating through a medium (such as on a carrier wave); the term computer-readable medium is therefore considered tangible and non-transitory. Non-limiting examples of a non-transitory computer-readable medium are nonvolatile memory devices (such as a flash memory device, an erasable programmable read-only memory device, or a mask read-only memory device), volatile memory devices (such as a static random access memory device or a dynamic random access memory device), magnetic storage media (such as an analog or digital magnetic tape or a hard disk drive), and optical storage media (such as a CD, a DVD, or a Blu-ray Disc).
The apparatuses and methods described in this application may be partially or fully implemented by a special purpose computer created by configuring a general purpose computer to execute one or more particular functions embodied in computer programs. The functional blocks and flowchart elements described above serve as software specifications, which can be translated into the computer programs by the routine work of a skilled technician or programmer.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63014007 | Apr 2020 | US |
