Dutch artist to turn air pollution into jewellery

A Dutch artist and designer has teamed up with engineers on a project to turn the carbon in air pollution in smog into rings and cufflinks. 

Daan Roosegaarde, founder of Studio Roosegaarde, will build a prototype 23-foot-tall air purification system called the Smog Free Tower, designed to clean the air in parks and other public areas.

To pay for it, he launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter last week, with the aim of raising $54,000. So far it is well on its way to meeting that goal, with over 200 backers pledging money.

The smog-eating tower, partly borrowing its design from hospital air-purifying systems, will suck in polluted air and capture ultra-fine smog particles using patented ionic filters.

In the spirit of the circular economy, the pollution will then be put to better use.

“We looked at [the smog] and said, ‘this is not waste’. We realised 42 per cent of this was carbon. And [by putting] carbon under high-pressure, you get diamond,” Roosegaarde says. Backers can purchase a smog free cube for €50 or a smog free ring or cufflinks for €250.

“We are just building the largest electronic vacuum cleaner in the world,” says Roosegaarde.

The idea came to Roosgaarde after a trip to Beijing, a city which periodically experiences air pollution levels way above the limit recommended by the World Health Organisation.

The first tower will begin operating in Rotterdam in September. After Rotterdam, Roosegaarde hopes to set up towers in other smog-choked cities in India, Mexico and China.

In the past Roosegaarde has attracted attention for creating dance floors that generate electricity from dancing and glow-in-the-dark solar-powered lighting for motorways.

Smog-eating designs

This is the latest in a series of imaginative solutions to air pollution.

Last year, university students in Peru unveiled a smog-eating billboard. Peers at the University of California in the US answered with smog-eating roof tiles, while scientists at the University of Sheffield in the UK designed a smog-eating poem.