The EvoGreen team was created by ITS students when inaugurated as the second winner in the 2021 Schneider Go Green competition

ITS Campus, ITS News – The level of air pollution in Indonesia caused by many motorized vehicles is still relatively high. Seeing these conditions, a team of students from the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) tried to come up with an EvoGreen innovation aimed at helping reduce high air pollution.

Hartandi Wisnumukti and I Made Ayu Nandini from the ITS Electrical Engineering Department, batch 2018. Joined in a team, the two designed a device to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) to oxygen (O2) using algae called EvoGreen.

(from left) Hartandi Wisnumukti and I Made Ayu Nandini showing their ideas for EvoGreen

The student, familiar with Tandi, explained that EvoGreen is the Schneider Electric Homes Bio-Reactor to capture CO2 to create cleaner air. This bioreactor is made with the specific purpose of creating an artificial habitat for living algae. Algae was chosen because it has been proven to capture CO2 better than ordinary plants. “Apart from that, algae are also more flexible in terms of their treatment,” he explained.

The student, who is often called Tandi, said that EvoGreen works by sucking dirty air from the environment, which will then be stored in a dirty tank. After that, the algae mixture and the polluted air will be pumped into a series of clear pipes so that the algae can carry out the photosynthesis process and convert CO2 into O2. “So this long process will produce oxygen which can be released back into the air,” he explained.

(left) The design of the prototype of the upper detail for the dirty air exhaust and the photosynthesis process place and (right) The prototype design of the tank for the storage of polluted air and nutrients produced by the algae process and the outlet for clean air

Tandi continued, EvoGreen had the idea of ​​his team working not as an ordinary water cleaner but as a converter of carbon dioxide into oxygen. So that this design tool not only affects humans but also affects the surrounding environment. In addition, with further processing, the algae that have been used can also be used as biomass.

According to Tandi, EvoGreen can absorb ten times more efficiently than trees and can be installed at home so that everyone can contribute to reducing the carbon footprint. In addition, EvoGreen is also digitally integrated with AVEVA (smart home devices), which allows users to get data in real-time through the application. “This new concept seemed to captivate the judges when we participated in the competition,” he said.

AVEVA clever home device user interface design that integrates with EvoGreen

Based on this innovation, this team won second place in the Schneider Go Green 2021 competition, early April. In the event organized by Schneider Electric, this team managed to beat 121 other proposals throughout Indonesia. “This is an extraordinary achievement for our work,” he said proudly.

This alumnus of SMAN 3 Madiun hopes that the EvoGreen created by his team in the future can be realized in Indonesia because this design tool has reached the prototyping stage at its technology readiness level and has also coordinated with Schneider Electric regarding the prototype design. “Hopefully, this tool can realize our main goal in reducing air pollution,” he concluded hopefully. (ITS Public Relations)

EvoGreen prototype design by Hartandi Wisnumukti and I Made Ayu Nandini in collaboration with Arfita Vania Dewi and Lazuardi Iman

Reporter: Mukhammad Akbar Makhbubi