Copenhagen Airport tests pollution capture systems at airside lab

Copenhagen Airport is testing filters that could strip pollution from aircraft exhaust where it leaves the engine. The facility, called CPH Air Lab, sits in a container on an active airside area. It holds a large ventilation duct, a test chamber, and sensors that detect and measure particles.

Five technologies will be trialled over the coming months. All five trap particles, but in different ways. Some use physical filter media. Some rely on electrically charged surfaces. Others bind particles to biological material such as moss.

Maria Skotte, the airport's chief sustainability officer, said the airport has worked for years on cutting ultrafine particle emissions and is now examining whether particles can also be removed near the source.

Project manager Alexandra Halberg Hüneburg-Møller, who works in the airport's innovation team, said the technologies were originally developed for other industries. That is why the lab matters: it allows them to be evaluated against aircraft exhaust in a working airport setting.

Technologies that perform well in the container trials will move to larger-scale testing next year. That stage could include fitting them into blast fences, which shield surrounding areas from the airflow produced by aircraft engines. The airport said open-air results would determine whether the approach can be developed further.