Studio Roosegaarde
While air purifiers are able to clean the air in your living room and office, there is little escape from $4 once you step out into the open.
Now, Dutch designer $4 is closing in on $4 to bring air purification outside by way of a massive, outdoor air purifier.
The first so-called $4 - a 23 by 11.5 foot structure that will $4 run on wind energy - will be built in Rotterdam and then carried to other cities. Mumbai, Paris, Beijing, and Los Angeles are possible destinations.
Roosegaarde and his team will also use the smog from the purifier to make tiny $4 that could be mounted in rings and cuff links.
This is all part of a larger campaign - called the $4 - in which Roosegaarde is urging individuals, non-profits, and governments around the world to make cities smog-free. Of course, one tower, no matter how awesome, will have a tough time ridding a city of smog. The point of the Smog-Free Tower, according to the design studio, is to provide a "sensory experience of a clean future."
The technology - called air ionization - has been used in places like hospitals to clean air for $4. The process is surprisingly elegant: a purifier sends positively charged air molecules out into the air, which stick themselves to ultra-fine smog particles that are pulled back in. The purifier then blows out smog-free, clean air.
Image courtesy of Studio Roosegaarde
The smog dust filled with carbon would then be compressed into an 8.4 mm by 8.4 mm cube. You can $4 rings, cuff-links, or simply a cube as part of backing the Kickstarter.
Roosegaarde says that the process of making each of those accessories will clean 1,000 cubic meters of polluted air. He $4 that in severely polluted areas, the purifier will be able to produce 3,500 smog cubes a day.
There's even a smog-free party planned in Rotterdam on September 4. Book your tickets $4.