# data[].attributes.body
Air quality is a problem that has recently been a occurring in countries with large populations and high levels of manufacturing. These countries include a lot of Asian and middle eastern countries. Some companys have innovated technologies to help improve air quality so that the people living in these areas don’t experience long term exposure health problems later in life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Daan Roosegaarde: A smog vacuum cleaner and other magical city designs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Daan Roosegaarde uses technology and creative thinking to produce imaginative, earth-friendly designs. He presents his latest projects -- from a bike path in Eindhoven, where he reinterpreted "The Starry Night" to get people thinking about green energy, to Beijing, where he developed a smog vacuum cleaner to purify the air in local parks, to a dance floor that generates electricity to power a DJ booth.

# data[].attributes.body
Photosynthesis Bike

# data[].attributes.body
In China, there is a lot of smog that has left the city with a very low quality of air. A Dutch designer by the name of Daan Roosegaarde visited Beijing over 4 years ago and viewed first hand just how bad the pollution was from his hotel window. One morning he woke up and he could barely see anything from his room from all the smog pollution. It was at that moment that Roosegaarde decided that he would make an innovation to effectively reduce the amount of smog in the air of cities in China such as Beijing. In a short amount of time, Roosegaarde and his team effectively designed and produced a smog tower . The innovation is able to clean 30000 cubic feet of air each hour and uses only a small amount of energy to do so. The technology used in Roosegaarde’s innovation is an ionisation method used previously in hospitals to clean air. The ionisation in the tower firsts charges the tower with a small positive energy current. Then a negatively charged surface draws the positive ions together. These positive ions trap the carbon from the surrounding air so essentially, when the negatively charged ions draws the positive ions together, pollution is collected from the air. Roosegarde mentions that this technology is unique and effective as it can filter out finer particles which other processes can not. The structure can effectively clean up to 70% of the surrounding air.  This innovation is important as people can lose years off of their life just due to the amount of toxicity in the air we breath, so we can now lower toxicity and improve peoples life expectancy. These structures measure in just 7 metres in height and do not take up much space at all which is great as this lowers costs and makes it a viable option for utilization almost anywhere. Currently most implementations are seen in China but there is no limit to how far this technology could be pushed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kaalink- Printer that prints from air pollution (POC)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
[Future versions of Kaala/Kaalink are a proprietary technology pursued by MIT Spinoff Graviky]

What if the air pollution could be repurposed to generate printing ink? 

kaalink.media.mit.edu

Initial Research: http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects/kaala-printer-prints-uses-pollution-ink (POC)

Black printing ink is one of the most consumed products in the industry. Most of this printing ink is produced in factories with complex chemical procedures. Companies like HP/Canon make 70 percent of their profits by selling these cartridges at 400% margin.

Just a minor itch that led me to build something cool from observations arising from nostalgia of the days back in India. There's so much soot/pollution around us, esp. in crowded cities. 

Our method here shows air pollution repurposed to be used as printing ink. Printable via  ~ 100dpi print platform.

'kaala' stands for black.

# data[].attributes.body
In places like China or India where pollution could be at its worst, there may be a new invention to fix the problem. Designers in Bangkok, Thailand have come up with a bike that turns polluted air into clean, less harmful air. This bike has been coined as a photosynthesis bike. Lightfog Creative & Design Company believes that the bike will produce oxygen through a water and electric power reaction from a lithium-ion battery. The battery is powered by a photosynthesis-like system that runs through the aluminum frame. This invention would be very helpful in reducing traffic which also in turn, reduces pollution. More people will want to ride bikes or the photosynthesis bike which means there will be less cars on the road to pollute the atmosphere. If this project can work it will be very big in keeping Earth better, longer.

# data[].attributes.body
anhirudh. (2013). Kaalink- Printer that prints from air pollution. Retrieved from Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/87233029

Brownstone, S. (2013, December 10).
Purify The Air As You Ride, With This Photosynthesis Bike. Retrieved from Fast Company: https://www.fastcompany.com/3023176/purify-the-air-as-you-ride-with-this-photosynthesis-bike

Engineers Australia. (2016, July 5). Air purifying tower extracts smog particles. Retrieved from Engineers Australia: https://portal.engineersaustralia.org.au/news/air-purifying-tower-extracts-smog-particles

Poon, L. (2016, March 3). The Creative Ways Innovators Are Recycling Air Pollution. Retrieved from CityLab: https://www.citylab.com/life/2016/03/the-innovative-ways-people-are-recycling-air-pollution/471999/

Roosegaarde, D. (2017). A smog vacuum cleaner and other magical city designs. Retrieved from Ted: https://www.ted.com/talks/daan_roosegaarde_a_smog_vacuum_cleaner_and_other_magical_ci ty_designs#t-571237

​
Studio Roosegaarde. (2018). Smog free tower. Retrieved from Studio Roosegarde: https://www.studioroosegaarde.net/project/smog-free-tower

# data[].attributes.body
Anirudh Sharma, an MIT graduate and innovator in India has developed a way to turn smoke into printable ink. He harvests the carbon from smoke (or as he calls it “black gold”) and uses a machine to add a little alcohol and oil and insert it into a regular ink cartridge that is ready for use. This smoke can be gathered from any source of combustion like car exhausts and chimneys. Collecting this carbon helps it from entering the air we breathe and puts it to good use.

Anirudh started this project while studying in MIT. After graduating he and his new team at Sbalabs are now trying to partner with company’s worldwide to spread there product. Their dream is to make handheld devices that can attach to a muffler and collect carbon. This would generate two cartridges of ink for every six miles traveled.

# data[].attributes.body
Of the three technologies the one that provides the most sustainability is the smog tower. The smog tower not only uses minimal energy resources when it creates clean air but there is no actual waste from these towers. This is because Roosegaarde has literally made diamonds from the waste of the towers. Initially, there was a waste material of carbon in a solid form and Roosegaarde wanted this to change. He and his team then created diamond engagement rings out of the carbon. This worked because under high pressure carbon can turn into diamonds. The engagement rings were available to the public and all the money went back into the project for further implementation of the technology. This is a key to the smog towers is that they are not only sustainable in all aspect’s energy wise, but also, they are self-sufficient from a business standpoint as their waste has now been transformed into value.

# data[].attributes.body
Climate change has a higher platform of attention than ever before and technology continuously evolves at a rate that steadily increases. These innovations are just the beginning of what is to come. The smog towers being relatively new have a lot of potential in upcoming years. The photosynthesis bike makes a fun activity also one that cleans the surrounding air, with no additional effort required.  Sharma’s innovation not only cleans air but also reduces destruction of the environment by converting waste into ink that would traditionally be obtained by materials found in nature. This is just the beginning of our efforts to create a greener planet by improving the quality of air we breath.