The World’s Largest Smog Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Smog And Turns It Into Gem Stones

By: | July 17th, 2016

Image courtesy Studio Roosegaarde

With every passing year, the condition of the air in some locations is deteriorating from bad to worse.

In some places, the pollution is visible. However, in many places, it is not visible, but its impact on our daily lives and health is noticeable. As per a study by researchers at UC Berkeley, about 4,000 people in China die every day from air pollution.

To improve air quality, designer Daan Roosegaarde has installed the “largest smog vacuum cleaner in the world.” The project was funded on Kickstarter and is the result of Roosegaarde’s three years of research and development.

Image courtesy Studio Roosegaarde

Image courtesy Studio Roosegaarde

gem

Image courtesy Studio Roosegaarde

This amazing air purifier is a tower that sucks up smog from the top and then releases the filtered air through its six-sided vents. It cleans the pollution from more than 30,000 cubic meters of air per hour—and then condenses those fine particles of smog into tiny “gem stones.” This device runs on 1,400 watts of green energy.

Each gem stone is a result of cleaning 1,000 cubic meters of air.

Roosegaarde described the working of Smog Free Tower: “By charging the Smog Free Tower with a small positive current, an electrode will send positive ions into the air. These ions will attach themselves to fine dust particles. A negatively charged surface – the counter electrode – will then draw the positive ions in, together with the fine dust particles. The fine dust that would normally harm us, is collected together with the ions and stored inside of the tower. This technology manages to capture ultra-fine smog particles which regular filter systems fail to do.”

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

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