The Envi-Duino (TED)

The Envi-Duino-(TED) is a add-on device to factory chimneys /exhaust pipes specially engineered to  purify the toxic fumes/emissions into eco-friendly form before dissipation into  environment,  with   remote data monitoring. .

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally indoor and outdoor pollution contributes to 7 million deaths  annually. The largest contributors to urban outdoor air pollution include automobiles, small-scale manufacturers and other industries, the burning of solid fuel for cooking and heating, and coal-fired power plants. Road transport is estimated to be responsible for up to 30% of particulate emissions in European cities and up to 50% of Particulate Matter (PM) emissions in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries – mostly due to diesel traffic. Evidence suggests that road transport accounted for 50% of the cost of the health impacts of air pollution – both death and illness – in OECD countries in 2010 – close to $1 trillion [2].

In Africa, air pollution is the second largest cause of death and it accounts for 16.3% of all annual deaths. Additionally, it causes 780,000 premature deaths. Because of the growing cities and megacities, use of automobiles and industrialization in Africa, there will be a large increase in air pollutant emissions from burning fossil fuels and traditional biomass hence contributing more than 50% of the global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The greatest challenge that Africa still has is the importation of outdated automobiles and technologies whose Design for the Environment (DFE) was not carefully thought through. In Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda the estimate of used vehicles on the road is at least 95%[8]. It is now known globally that vehicle pollutant emissions are harmful to human health. Among the harmful pollutant emissions that relate to passenger and commercial vehicles are: carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), unburned hydrocarbons (HC), and particulates such as soot and ash. In 2013, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that particulate matter is associated with lung cancer [3]. Particulates PM10 (with diameter 10 µm) and PM2.5 (2.5 µm) all contribute to the risk of cardiovascular diseases[3]. 

Most African countries are already infested with the scourge of old technology in both industries and automobiles. Automobile pollutants harm our health and contain greenhouse gasses that cause climate change[1]. Burning gasoline and diesel fuel creates harmful byproducts like nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, benzene, and formaldehyde. In addition, automobiles emit carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. Therefore there is a need to combat any adverse that these could cause on human health and or the environment. Our team has built an innovative intervention to combat these challenges. Our solution is called The Envi-Duino (TED) Device. The TED device is an add-on device to factory chimneys and car exhausts that purifies the toxic fumes into eco-friendly forms. The TED device has the potential to combat the high pollution levels caused by the already existing old technology into eco-friendly forms.

 [1 ] SDN, 2020, Africa News, 2020, Guardian, 2020

[2] .www.oecd.org/publications

 [3] Baskin, Ariadne. "Africa used vehicle report." Proceedings of the Africa Clean Mobility Week, Nairobi, Kenya (2018): 10-16.

The Envi-Duino (TED) device  is made of two words Envi-for environment and Duino-for Arduino (Arduino means best friend) ,so Envi-Duino means the Environments best friend .

TED has four components - the Pre and Post purification sensors that monitor the Emissions before and after purification respectively to confirm if purification of toxic emissions/fumes took place.

 The purification of the fumes is performed via the specially designed and engineered multiple smart low-cost enhanced activated carbon filters made from locally available materials in Africa. These filters effectively perform using  their adsorption potential.

- The device is also equipped with remote monitoring technologies that keep a log of emission values data from different factories and automobiles  in the cloud server. As a user there is platform that lets you know if your filters are performing effectively or if they need  replacement. 

We have conduct a number of lab test to ensure the device performs as expected and below are the findings:

• The TED device reduced the concentration of Nitrogen, Carbon monoxide and Sulphur from a concentration of 424ppm, 454ppm and 91ppm to 38ppm, 30ppm and 15ppm respectively. The graph below shows performance of the filters. We are doing additional research to ensure that the absorption rate is very close to 100%.

The TED device will ensure that the fumes that escape to the environment are eco-friendly and have no effect on the environment or humans.

Our team has currently embarked on developing a mobile application to ease monitoring and tracking of the next service or replacement of the filters. 

-Our project targets majorly  people living in cities and towns and those living around factories and industrial areas.

-Research shows that a high percentage of people living around  factory and industrial areas and  cities  report in hospitals everyday with conditions  that are as a result of poor quality air inhaled. Premature births and  cardiovascular diseases have  also been mostly reported in these areas and . There are no control measures that have been put in place to protect the locals form the toxic fumes.

-There is  high rate of air pollution in these areas mainly due to toxic fumes/ emissions from the large number of factories in these areas and toxic fumes from the large concentration of automobiles with outdated technologies.

-Our solution-The Envi-Duino has the potential to purify the toxic emissions into eco-friendly form  before dissipation into the environment, and this way the locals will be saved from the toxic fumes that affect both their health and the environment.

1. Racheal Abaasa-Is a Computer Engineer with expertise in embedded systems design and development and computer programming. She has a vast knowledge of product development, sensor technologies, and Internet of Things (IoT) Technologies.

2. Omoding Wycliff-He has expertise in Environmental Engineering and management and has a background in petroleum Engineering and Environmental management. He has worked alongside environmental management experts.

3. Komuhangi Cynthia-Cynthia is an expert in internet of things (IoT) and sensor technologies. She has worked on a number of projects  specializing in clouding computing and data analytics. She has a a background in  Computer science and information systems.

4. Wamusi Isaac Samuel-Mr. Isaac has expertise business analytics  and is involved in the Research and development and user engagement.

We are in partnership with Airqo Makerere,-dealing in air quality monitoring in differ parts of the city in Kampala Uganda.

-We  have been given access to the database of different air qualities obtained by their system and the analytics show the prevalence of the problem being so high i.e.-above the recommended air quality standards .

-Our research also shows that the prevalence respiratory diseases and conditions and heart related conditions due to air pollution is  very high in people living around factories, industries and mega cities.

-We have interacted with factory and industry  owners -some of whom their factories have recently been closed in Easter Uganda because they were not  conforming to the recommended emissions quality, and our solution seemed to be their only hope to re-open their factories.

our solution therefore  has been carefully designed with Design for environment (DFE) in consideration, Design thinking and human and user centered design used.

We are cognisant of the fact that new vehicles are hybrid and fused with catalytic converters to eliminate toxic fumes to the environment. But most of the modern cars are few in Africa and factories have not taken any measure to purify the . Our industries and factories in Africa have also not taken into consideration design for the environment constantly causing pollution. Through our product design research, we did not find any product that works in a similar manner that we are proposing. We propose to use locally sourced materials in Africa to reduce cost of production and have maximum impact on environment.

more, so,most organizations /companies are involved in  air quality monitoring and quality analysis. These include companies like: AirQo Project by Makerere University in Uganda. Other  companies have focused on purification inside the cars and this does not have anything to do with the emissions that are released by the vehicles and factories - An example of such is the AirBubbi company.

Our innovation is unique in such a way that it focuses on analysis and purification of toxic fumes/emissions from factories and automobiles which are the greatest contributors of air pollution especially in developing countries. This has cost the countries a lot of money especially in addressing health related issues caused by the toxic fumes. The fumes are purified and they are emitted to the environment in an eco-friendly form. The TED device is a low cost locally manufactured device and the filter technology inside the TED device is also locally manufactured. TED also has a component of data capture and transmission plus storage to a cloud server that can be used for any other studies whenever needed.

We shall discuss the milestones that we have achieved to-date on the development of TED devices. These milestones are:

We  conducted a situation analysis and developed a situation analysis report. This situation analysis gave us a good understanding of the quality of air and the greatest contributors to air pollution in Uganda. Our findings can be extrapolated across the African continent as the settings are mostly the same. 

We did all the preliminary work related to the development of the TED device including: Product Requirements Documents, Technical Design Documents and Computer Aided Designs. We built the first versions of the TED device that we attached to an exhaust of a 8 year old car during our lab tests. The results from these tests were promising and they gave ground truth to continue working. The TED device reduced the effects of the emissions by more than 95%. This is the basis of us seeking for investment and additional funding to conduct a large study. Results from this study will give us a basis for replicating the technology to other regions.

With funding from MIT Solved, we shall implement a large-scale study across urban centers, factory and industrial areas in Uganda in order to evaluate performance of the TED device, lay scaling plans to other markets and ensure we set up a production facility so that we are able to achieve our impact goals below:-

 Social, Environmental and Gender Impact 

Social Impact: The Envi-Duino device prevents/reduces air pollution through  the purification of toxic fumes from automobiles into eco-friendly forms. Therefore our TED Project aligns well under pollution abatement and  reduces a number of pollution based health complications that result from air pollution.

Environmental: The TED device has the potential to reduce risks to the environment caused by burning of fossil fuels. This has the potential to combat effects of climate change that are already causing havoc globally. 

Gender: Research has shown that currently a  number of pre-matures  have been on the rise. The number of babies born with complications is also overwhelming and the primary contributor of these health conditions is polluted air inhaled by pregnant women and girls. Cancer cases have been reported to rise especially in urban and semi-urban areas. With the implementation  of the Envi-Duino device has the potential to reduce these adverse effects.

Our Technology is majorly Technology powered.

The Envi-Duino(TED) Device uses sensors that is Carbon dioxide (CO2)level sensors, Nitrogen oxide (NOx)  level sensors, and  Sulphur oxide (SOx) sensors.

-It's also based on ATMEGA328Pu microcontroller technology which is the brain of the device.

-We use -Enhanced activated carbon filter for emissions purification and this utilizes the adsorption capability of impregnated carbon.

-Our project is IoT based-its therefore powered by Internet technology and cloud computing technologies.

We are currently testing our device in the laboratory and we would like to fabricate the devices and install them in different parts of the cities in Central Uganda Industrial area. We expect to serve over 1000 people in central Uganda within our first year of operation.

-Our barrier is majorly  financial support to facilitate the production of a number of devices to install in different industrial areas and major cities in the region so that we are able to capture real data and do analytics with our system  and then move on the a beta level product for commercialization purposes.

-We have already had meetings with the Uganda registration services bureau and our patent filing will be completed soon.

The ENvi-Duino (TED) project has two partnerships so far:

1.AirQo-Uganda- AirQo is an air monitoring project that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and low-cost technologies to generate and quantify data on air quality.-We are partnering with AirQo and we have been given access to their database where we are able to look at air quality in different regions. This is to enable us to analyze the impact of our project in the areas where it will be installed, by looking at air quality in the region before deployment of the Envi-Duino and air quality in the same region after deployment of our project.

-2.Mbarara University of Science and Technology-We utilize the Mbarara University of Science and Technology Laboratories for Research and development,prototyping, and project reviews.

Air pollution has a number of negative effects both on Human health, and the environment, and climate change.-We are providing a solution/product to cub the problem of Air pollution from automobiles, industry and factory chimneys which are the major contributors.

Our key Customers include;

-Factory/industry owners

-Automobile owners

-Transport Ministries

-Environment Authorities 

Products we are providing

-The Envi-Duino (TED) device

-Replacement filters(Low cost and locally made)

-The Envi-Duino(TED) Portal -The portal has a lot of data about air quality and Air quality changes and can be utilized for research and climate change predictions.

Why the Envi-Duino (TED)?

-For factories and industries -a number of them have been closed because they are not complying with the emissions standards set by Environment authorities. With our solution, such factories and industries will be able to operate again and conduct their businesses while considering the environment.

-Research shows that people staying near industrial areas and urban centers with huge numbers of automobiles have a higher percentage of people with health issues that are a result of air pollution-these range from lung-related diseases to cardiovascular and premature births. With the Envi-Duino (TED) welcomed and deployed in such areas, the prevalence of such diseases and conditions will be reduced massively.

-The governments have been putting a burn on the importation of old technology automobiles above certain manufacture years because of the emissions from the old technologies. With the Envi-Duino add-on device to these automobile exhaust systems, there will be no more worries.

The market size from our market survey is shown below.

-Total addressable market(TAM) is about 30.8 million

-Serviceable Available market (SAM) is about 10 Million and 

-Serviceable Obtainable Market(SOM) is about 5 million.

We will generate money through:-

1.Selling our devices 

2.Selling the replacement filters (Servicing)

3.payments from researchers to gain access to our data  servers.

4.we also hope to explore investment capital.