How To Make a Port Arthur Air Purifier
Citizen Science, COVID, and the Corsi-Rosenthal Box
Author’s Note: I published this piece in June 2023 when those of us who live in the Great Lakes were dealing with the smoke and haze from the massive Summer 2023 wildfires in Quebec.
Air quality was a key issue last summer not only because of the fires but also because of COVID; as of September 2024 the virus remains with us in new variants and a renewed round of vaccines are on their way.
Wildfires and COVID aren’t going away; you can protect yourself and others by creating a simple and effective air filter with four furnace filters and a box fan.
In the 1990s I worked as a law clerk for an organization representing death row inmates in Texas. I got around the Lone Star State and I saw some stuff.
As we choke on the ash of ancient, Quebec maples I am reminded of a case I worked on in Port Arthur, Texas, where oil refineries proliferated. I was dispatched to interview a dying witness. The poor man was clinging to life in a hospital bed in his crowded living room.
I noticed a low humming above me and looked up to see furnace filters taped to a box fan suspended from the ceiling. I looked quizzically at his son, who politely replied to my unasked question. “Air filter,” he said. “Works like a charm.”
For what it’s worth that wasn’t the only “Port Arthur Air Purifier” I saw on that trip (my own name for the device. It never really caught on). Based on the fact that the ambient air in that gentleman’s home didn’t reek of sulfur like everything else in Port Arthur I guessed it was effective.
Citizen Science
Fast-forward to COVID, and the issue of indoor air quality became one of life and death. Richard Corsi, an engineering professor at UC Davis contacted an old friend, Jim Rosenthal, who owned a Texas air filter company about the most efficient way to clean indoor air. The result was a new iteration of the Port Arthur Air Purifier, the “Corsi-Rosenthal Box.”
For the record, it was reporters for WIRED and the New York Times who called it the “Corsi-Rosenhal Box.” Neither Corsi nor Rosenthal claimed credit for taping furnace filters to box fans, and I doubt they profited. They seem like nice guys who just want to help people breathe clean air.
The Devices are Effective
A box fan and filter mounted in a window can reduce particulate matter between 1 and 10 μm in size by about 75%. A peer-reviewed study at Brown University confirmed this. The study’s author said:
The findings show that an inexpensive, easy-to-construct air filter can protect against illness caused not only by viruses but also by chemical pollutants. This type of highly-accessible public health intervention can empower community groups to take steps to improve their air quality and therefore, their health.
An Opportunity For Anyone to Help Clean Indoor Air
There is, of course, no reason why a group of civic-minded people can’t raise a few hundred dollars and tape furnace filters to box fans. Order some pizzas, maybe play some zydeco music (an homage to Port Arthur) in the background and you can improve lives while having a good time.
As we know, systemic racism locates polluting industries in African-American neighborhoods and this type of DIY citizen science can help a lot. Corsi-Rosenthal boxes will make senior citizen centers, schools — anyplace really — healthier.
One day I will tell the rest of the story of my visit to Port Arthur and my discovery of zydeco. It involves a funeral, a few bottles of Lone Star, an opportunity to use my schoolboy French on a rickety stage, and dancing the zydeco until my feet bled.
Play us out Corey!