'Smog-Free Tower' to be tested in Beijing

Daan Roosegaarde, the man who designed the world’s first outdoor air cleaner, is to bring his invention to Beijing for testing, according to a report by thepaper.cn.

The report said that Roosegaarde has tested the 23-foot (roughly 7 meters) tower in his hometown of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He claims that the tower is energy efficient, using electricity roughly the same as an electric heater.

In the interview with thepaper.cn, the designer also said that the tower can filter 30,000 cubic meters of air in one hour, and it can purify an area the size of a football field in a day and a half.

The tower looks like a miniature, chrome-latticed skyscraper. Different from ordinary air purifiers, Roosegaarde's tower contains a powerful vacuum that uses ionization technology to suck up smog, filter out the dangerous particles and then release purified air. Roosegaarde said that he was inspired by the technology used in hospitals and parking garages.

The inventor also took inspriation from traditional Chinese architecture. "When I visited towers in temples, I wondered what would happen if we constructed some clean-energy towers, and whether the towers could reduce pollution in cities," said Roosegaarde. "That is why I built a tower-shaped device."

Roosegaarde has received invitations to test the machine in many countries, including Mexico and India. He said that it will be great to demonstrate the machine's capabilities in Beijing because the reason he decided to build such a device in the first place is that he experienced Beijing's smog two years ago.

The China Forum of Environmental Journalists (CFEJ), a subordinate unit of China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, has launched a smog-relief campaign, and the tower is one of the projects included in the campaign. Liu Guozheng, deputy director of CFEJ and also the man who invited Roosegaarde to carry out his test in China, said in an interview with the New York Times that the role of the Smog-Free Tower as a warning sign is very significant; it is a reminder of our mission and responsibility to fight against pollution.

Besides Beijing, the tower will be demonstrated in four other cities around China. Roosegaarde said his studio will launch an online vote to let the public decide which four cities the tower should visit.

Roosegaarde has not revealed the cost of the tower. In the interview with thepaper.cn, he said that he and his collaborators will produce more similar devices in the future. Additional details are to be released after the demonstration in Beijing, he said.

Another exciting aspect of the tower is that it uses the carbon collected from polluted air and compresses it to form diamonds. The diamonds can then be made into rings, cuff links and loose stones, which can be sold to support the development and construction of more towers.