B.C. teen's award-winning invention set to help travellers breathe better on airplanes

When Ebola broke out in West Africa last year, one of the biggest concerns was how to keep the virulent, deadly virus from being spread by international air travel.

Most of us felt helpless. Raymond Wang got to work.

The 17-year-old science-whiz student at St. George’s School in Vancouver fired up his computer and set out to model the way air circulates in the passenger cabins of commercial aircraft.

What he came up with won the $75,000 (USD) first prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh in May.

And that was just the beginning.

“I started looking into epidemics, and I came across these pretty scary statistics.” Wang tells Yahoo Canada. “For example, the CDC has found that when an infected passenger walks onto a plane, he can actually infect up to 17 other passengers per flight. It’s clearly a huge issue.

“My goal was to generate the first high-resolution simulation of cabin airflow in the entire industry. And what you’re actually getting is three to five times greater resolution with my simulation that you would with any other work-up that’s previously been done.”

Yes, planes have HEPA filters to scrub continuously cycling air. But Wang’s model discovered that air which might be carrying flu – or Ebola – might not actually be passing through the filters.

“What we find in the traditional cabin is that – even though we are replacing the volumes of air – a lot of is just being pushed around in the cabin and contaminated by other passengers. It hasn’t had the chance to be filtered out by the outlet,” Wang explains.

Having identified the problem, the inspired teenager immediately set out to solve it. He invented a brand new, patent-pending air-filtration device – one that actually plugs into the existing hardware on all passenger planes.

“With my innovation, we’re able to redirect the freshly filtered air that’s coming in from the main cabin inlets,” he says. “We’re able to create individual, personalized breathing zones for each passenger. We can promote up to 190 per cent fresher air onto everyone.

“By doing that, we’re also able to decrease passenger transmission by up to 55 times.”

The airline business is fiercely competitive, and financial margins are tight. For Wang, that’s good news.

“The great thing about my innovation is that it’s very economically feasible,” he notes.

“Previously in the industry, past proposals have required completely redoing the aircraft’s air-conditioning system. That means taking the plane out of service for one or two months, completely ripping the inside apart, and performing a maintenance check which costs tens of thousands of man-hours, and millions of dollars.

“With my innovation, it costs just $10 to make per window section. If we have 100 windows, it costs $1000 for the entire plane. And it’s able to be installed overnight, right at the gate. Airlines don’t have to pull their planes out of service.”

In addition to completing Grade 11, Wang has been very busy recently pitching his ideas to airlines and the industry.

Andre Gerner is a former test pilot with the U.S. Air Force, and served as a judge at the science fair where Wang’s idea took top prize. He praises both the idea and its inventor.

“Raymond's work was quite remarkable and relevant – especially for a high school student!” he enthuses. “It definitely shows promise, and he's smart to be undergoing patent protection for it.”

Wang is highly encouraged with the reaction his idea has already received.

“All the reactions that I’ve had are how surprised people are at how well such a simple innovation does work. With all this overwhelming evidence, it’s hard for anyone to say it doesn’t.”

And he’s got definite plans for the prize money.

“I’m hoping to be able to invest some of it into research – getting this innovation in the next few months through the regulatory process, as well as just generally getting it into the market as fast as possible, so that we can actually see this working in real planes.

“I’m going to use the other portion of the money to further my education in university – which is in about another year.”