New Delhi: COVID-19 highlighted the urgent need to improve indoor air quality, especially through better air filtration in heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. The challenge is that filters that trap more harmful particles often block airflow, making systems less efficient and more energy hungry.

In a breakthrough for cleaner and healthier indoor environments, an international team of researchers led by Prof. Amit Rawal from the Department of Textile and Fibre Engineering, IIT Delhi, has developed a machine learning framework to design smarter HVAC filters. 

By training machine learning models on diverse data points collected from studies worldwide, the researchers were able to predict both how well a filter cleans the air and how easily air can pass through it. The system was tested with industrial data from Elofic Industries Ltd., showing its ability to guide filter designs for real-world applications.

“This strong industry–academia partnership demonstrates how artificial intelligence (AI) can accelerate innovation, paving the way for cleaner indoor air, lower energy costs, and better preparedness against future health crises. By harnessing AI, our goal is to make healthier indoor environments accessible to everyone, from schools and hospitals to workplaces and homes”, said Prof. Amit Rawal, Textile and Fibre Engineering, IIT Delhi. 

The team’s study, Machine learning-driven strategies for optimal design of Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) filter media (study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2025.134973), has been published in Separation and Purification Technology. 

The research team brings expertise from academic and industry partners, including IIT Delhi, University of Borås, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, NIT Raipur, Bennett University and Elofic Industries Ltd. 

It includes PhD students, Siddharth Shukla, Danvendra Singh, and Alok Maurya; undergraduate student, Chhaveesh Manocha; faculty members Dr. Anuj Kumar Shukla, Dr. Sumit Sharma, Dr. Vijay Kumar, Prof. Nawar Kadi, and Prof. Artem Kulachenko; and an industry expert, Mr. Kamlesh Koul. Their collaboration bridges academia and industry to create sustainable and efficient filtration solutions.
                                                                                           
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