Amirreza Talaiekhozani - Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Jami Institute of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
Mohammad Reza Talaei - Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
Mehdi Yazdan - BSc Student, Department of Chemical Engineering, Jami Institute of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
Seyed Masoud Mir - BSc Student, Department of Chemical Engineering, Jami Institute of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

Background: Human hair can be used as an inexpensive and accessible adsorbent to remove a variety of pollutants from air. Although several studies have been done on removal of formaldehyde from wastewater by human hair, to date no study has investigated using hair to remove formaldehyde from air. Therefore, the aim of this study was to remove formaldehyde from synthetic contaminated air by a reactor packed with human hair.Methods: Air contaminated with formaldehyde was introduced into a cylindrical reactor packed with human hair at the initial concentration of 8500 mg/L. Formaldehyde concentration was measured in theinfluent and effluent of the reactor to indicate formaldehyde removal efficiency. Other measurements of parameters effective on formaldehyde removal were taken including amount of human hair andenvironmental temperature. Results: Results of this study revealed that each gram of human hair was able to remove 0.13 to 0.49 g of formaldehyde from air. Human hair adsorbed 98% of formaldehyde from synthetic contaminated airunder 20˚C. These results demonstrate that increased temperature had a negative effect on formaldehyde removal. Conclusion: Results of this study show that human hair can be applied as a simple and inexpensiveadsorbent to remove formaldehyde from industrial air exhaust. In addition, results of these tests can be considered as a small step to promote better air quality

Formaldehyde, Human hair, Adsorption process, Air treatment