First installed in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and then moving onto Beijing in 2016, the pollution-sucking Smog Free Tower is now headed for a park in Poland. Part of a wider project aimed to highlight the need for cleaner air in urban centers, the tower will be put to work in Kraków, where it will use its ionization technology to tackle the city's smog.
Billed as the world's first smog vacuum cleaner, Studio Roosegaard's Smog Free Tower was dreamt up by Dutch artist Dan Roosegaarde as a jumbo-sized air purifier for public spaces. The tower stands 7 m tall and 3.5 m thick (23 x 11 ft) and creates a localized bubble of cleansed air by releasing positively charged ions into the air. These cling to fine particles, which are sucked back inside the tower and snaffled by an negatively-charged surface.
Scientists at the Eindhoven University of Technology studied the effectiveness of the Smog Free Tower and found it can capture up to 70 percent of PM10 particles (10 micrometers or less in diameter) and up to 50 percent of PM2.5 particles (2.5 micrometers or less). The tower is claimed to use no more electricity than a water boiler.
After being put to work in Beijing, the tower cleaned 30 million cubic meters of air in 41 days, which Studio Roosegarde says is 10 times the volume of Beijing's 80,000 capacity Bird's Nest Stadium. The particles that the tower captures are collected and compressed into cubes for jewelry, which the studio also makes available for order.
Now destined for Kraków, the tower will be set up in Park Jordana, with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow to also showcase rings made from the tower's captured particles. The exhibition starts on February 16 and runs through to April 15.
Source: Studio Roosegaarde