STUDIO ROOSEGAARDE
Once you suck smog out of the air, what should you do with it? Pollution particles are mostly made up of carbon, so Dutch Artist Daan Roosegaarde decided to compress them into jewelry in a nod to diamond, carbon’s sparkliest allotrope.
The device extracting this pollution powder is Studio Roosegaarde’s Smog Free Tower, a 23-foot-tall air purification system meant to clean up parks and other public spaces. The company launched a Kickstarter on July 22 with a goal of $54,000 to build a prototype, and so far it is well on its way to meeting that goal. The first tower will be showcased in Rotterdam, Netherlands in September and hopefully expand to other cities after that, according to the project page.
Rebecca Harrington 