Cooker hoods in a passive house or Passivhaus
When we assume the importance of energy efficiency and make the decision to build a passive house, a legitimate doubt appears as usual houses are securely sealed with a forced ventilation system that is moving at a maximum of 300-500m3 / hour at full power.
In the normal operation of a house, the cooker hood can easily draw between 1,000m3 and 2,000m3 per hour. In a passive house as there are no uncontrolled air intakes, this can cause a vacuum in the house and we cannot compensate it only with the ventilation system, therefore there are currently valve systems that open when the extractor is started, but it is not an optimal solution (thermally inefficient and can generate condensation points).
An available solution so far is a hood that recirculates the air inside the kitchen and uses active carbon filters to catch the odors, but it is not optimal if the kitchen is used very intensively.
What we believe to be the almost definitive solution to this situation in passive houses, are recirculation hoods with “Plasma filters“. I will now clearly explain how they work.
They have a 6-9 layer filter that catches suspended particles. These filters can be washed in the dishwasher (like most current quality hoods).
From here through a small voltaic arc (energy), we convert the O2 into O3 (Ozone). The oxygen has 8 electrons per molecule, 4 linked 2 to 2 and 4 free, with the energy we get to break the molecules and of each 3 of the Oxygen we make two of O3 (Ozone).
This Ozone mixes with the smoke (molecules of Carbon and Carbon + Hydrogen), and as the Ozone is an oxidizing element, the Carbon molecules break into CO2 + O2 (and punctually H2O). Therefore, we have clean air with water vapor, CO2 and Oxygen.
This CO2 will be compensated with the ventilation system, keeping the air always clean, free from odors and without energy loss.
These filters, in addition, have been integrated into a standard hood that is no different from the present ones in the market.
The plasma hood also reduces the noise and creates an almost null maintenance of the filter (it is self-cleaning and has a life use of 10 years).
Therefore, with the plasma hoods we keep the air always clean, free from odors and without losing energy that is sacred in a passive house.
