An elevator tech that could save lives in a high-rise fire

into breathable oxygen. CO2, for example, is split into its molecular components until only O2 is left.

As it converts the gases, B-Air sucks the toxic air from the elevator shaft into the cab at 72 kilometers per hour, creating a high-pressure zone that keeps any unfiltered gases out. It can easily be retrofitted into an existing elevator.

What about the fear that fire in an elevator shaft will snap the elevator cables? That kind of construction is long gone. “Decades ago, elevator shafts were built from different materials, including wood,” Tomer points out. “Today, the shaft is one of the most protected areas in a building. It’s made of concrete and never catches on fire.”

For a building to change protocols and allow its elevators to continue operating during a fire, the B-Air system must work flawlessly. That was the main reason the entire seven-person staff of Salamandra Zone spent three weeks in the offices of Underwriter’s Laboratory in the United States earlier this year to perform testing.

Still, Tomer estimates it will take two to three years until B-Air will be released in partnership with an elevator manufacturer. Salamandra has letters of intent to install its software with three industrial plants in Israel.

B-Air can also create stationary refuge rooms like those required by Israeli law for new construction following the Second Gulf War.

C-Air for industry

Salamandra Zone’s second product, C-Air, is aimed at industrial plants that might have a gas leak or simply need a more efficient, less expensive way to clean up polluted output from their facilities.

Many industrial plants combine all their sources of emissions into a single pipe and then run it through a “scrubber” before it’s released into the atmosphere, Tomer says. “But in the best cases, they only have 40 percent efficiency.”

Installing C-Air at the end of the pipe – instead or in addition to the scrubber – can clean the gas “with 99.8 percent efficiency,” Tomer claims. Moreover, “the infrastructure is cheaper and it needs less chemistry.”

Tomer expects C-Air to be released sometime next year, just in time for European factories to be in compliance with a change in the way the European Union tracks pollution – from measuring concentration to measuring weight.

“They only have two years to stop these emissions,” Tomer says. “It’s like a sword hanging over their necks.”

Once the system gains traction in Europe, the United States and China (with its famously polluted cities and a government mandate to clean them up) will be next.

Salamandra Zone was founded in 2014 by Marat Maayan following his 27-year career in the Israel Defense Forces. One of his last military roles was to map and identify risks to buildings at sensitive facilities. One risk he found: evacuation from fire.

Maayan hooked up with Hebrew University Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry Prof. Yoel Sasson, who had received a provisional patent on converting carbon dioxide into breathable air. Salamandra Zone was formed as a joint venture and set about creating a commercial product that could cleanse more than just CO2. Sasson serves as the company’s senior scientific adviser.

Salamandra Zone’s headquarters are in Yehud, with R&D at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The company has raised $2.5 million from the Israel Innovation Authority, private investors and founder Maayan.

The company’s name is Hebrew for “salamander,” an animal than can breathe air but also lives in the water, Tomer says. “Ancient tribes in South America called salamanders ‘divine creatures’ because they could survive forest fires while other animals ran away or died. The salamanders would dive into the water and only surface after the fire had gone.”

Could Salamandra Zone have helped save more people during the 9/11 attack in New York City? Tomer says absolutely.

“We ran models looking at the two buildings,” Tomer explains. In one, the fire didn’t trip the software algorithms that stopped the elevators, so people were able to evacuate more quickly. “I don’t want to say a specific number, but based on our calculations, it could have been in the hundreds.”

Brian Blum writes about startups, pharmaceutical advances, and scientific discoveries for Israel21c. This article is published courtesy of Israel21c.