Schoolboy joins COVID battle by building home-made air purifiers

An 11-year-old schoolboy in Cayman is building do-it-yourself air purifiers to help cleanse indoor areas of airborne virus particles, as well as smoke, pollen, dust and other allergens.

Tom Osborne, a student at Footsteps school, has already built several of the home-made low-cost devices, known as Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes, using a simple 20-inch square box fan, duct tape, cardboard and four MERV 11 filters from local company Caribbean Filtration.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged in May last year that COVID-19 is transmittable through the air, especially in poorly ventilated indoor areas, and air purifiers and filtration units are now being widely used to assist in removing harmful particles from the air.

Tom, who built three of the DIY air purifiers in one day for his school after reading about the devices online, said, “They cost under 80 bucks each to make, and scientific studies show they can pull 85% of airborne virus particles out of the air. It’s a really cool way to help keep our classrooms safe and healthy – so I made a video to show people how to build them too.”

He says anyone who can wrap a parcel can build a Corsi-Rosenthal Box.

The filter unit is named after environmental engineer Richard Corsi and Jim Rosenthal, CEO of filter manufacturer Tex-Air Filters, who designed and built the air purifier in August last year. The information on how to build the DIY purifier was made available over open source, and the concept won Idea of the Year from the prestigious Waterloo Filtration Institute.

As well as giving the air purifiers to his school, Tom also built one for the Sunrise Adult Training Centre in West Bay.

Kim Voaden, director of Sunrise, said in a statement, “This is a great way to improve air quality and help vulnerable people feel safe and stay healthy – many of our clients have co-morbidities that make them higher risk for Covid-19. We’ve invested in a CR Box and are looking forward to Tom and his family teaching us how to make more at a workshop at Sunrise Centre next week.

“Keeping our Centre as healthy as possible, and keeping our Centre open, so that we can continue to serve our clients and their families, is a huge priority. We also are excited to offer a new training initiative that will enable our clients to help others in our community.”

The Cayman Islands Red Cross has also acknowledged Tom’s efforts.

Carolina Ferreira, Red Cross deputy director, said in the statement, “As we look at ways that we can continue to empower our community with not only knowledge but also tools that will help them, both to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, which is at the forefront of our minds, but also more broadly, these are the types of solutions that need to be shared. This is something that is incredibly accessible both in terms of cost and assembly, and Tom has done a great job demonstrating just that.

“I really hope that others in our community take on this project to make their schools, homes and offices safer.”

Tom’s school, in Eastern Avenue, now has several of the purifiers, all of which he built.

Emma Kendall, director of Footsteps, said, “The air filters are fantastic. We are really proud of Tom for his hard work and his amazing engineering skills. It gives us such peace of mind knowing that we’re doing everything we can to protect our students from COVID-19, with support from our wider school community.”

Tom is hoping more schools and community centres will build their own Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes. “Anyone who can wrap a parcel can build one. It’s awesome to know a fun science project can help people stay healthy during a pandemic,” he said.

Asked how many of the purifiers he’d created, Tom told the Compass, “A lot – seven or eight”, adding he plans to continue building them.

Tom and his mother Rachel Osborne say they would be happy to help teach others to build the air purifiers. Rachel Osborne suggested that a sponsor could be found to pay for the materials, and the filters could then be made available to a variety of locations, such as prisons, the Cayman Islands Crisis Centre and other facilities.