Innovative design: the world’s largest air purifier

Smog Free Project Daan Roosegaarde

There is a thin line between art, design, and technology. And right on that cross line you find the latest design by Daan Roosegaarde Studio: the world’s largest air purifier. It is called the Smog Free Project and does just what it says. It sucks CO2 from the air. But it is more than that. It stands in the public space on a grass field, right out of the city center of Rotterdam. And being out there it actually looks more like a public piece of art. A futuristic piece of design. We say, an excellent place for a pollution-free picnic. 


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A piece of public design that eats smog. Perfect! Just what metropolitan cities need with busy traffic and industry. Designer Daan Roosegaarde developed the idea of a gigantic air purifier for problematic cities in China. Yet the prototype was developed in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where the air is clear like a still lake compared to Beijing. Nevertheless, the Dutch air feeds the purifier with CO2 providing it with black powder, proving how much pollution there is even in smaller cities.

Jewelry made from CO2

The design could not be Daan Roosegaarde’s if it would not have a little twist to the technical story. The thing about his air purifier is that it makes jewelry from CO2. It just takes a little bit of the black powder that was sucked from the air and squeezes it inside a transparent ring or cufflink, Wall-e like. It looks cool and it is a legendary way of showing what is actually in the air around us. How horrible that that is what we sniff up during a day in the city. And just to put it in perspective, Rotterdam is nothing but a small bead compared to metropolitan cities like New York, Shanghai, or Tokyo.

If you want to carry that realization with you every day, you can get a ring or cufflink. It makes you contribute to air purifying because the money is donated to the development of more models. And you raise awareness around you. You can do so by contributing to the studio’s Kickstarter campaign. Actually, the campaign just takes two more days so hurry if you want a piece of the sky!

Daan Roosegaarde

This is not the first time Daan Roosegaarde creates such a remarkable design. He got into the international spotlights before with projects like Dune and Smart Highway. Each design has these things in common: they are sustainable and environment friendly, it always moves and looks really cool. Daan Roosegaarde puts what seems to be futuristic right into the present. And not in a lab or a classified ministry of defense, but right in the middle of society, between the people. On top of that, many designs require interaction or are a moving part of the landscape, like the air purifier.

Location and specifications

You can take a look at the Smog Project since it is outside in the open air, right next door of the Daan Roosegaarde Studio. The address is Vierhavensstraat 52 in Rotterdam, reachable by trams and, of course, this is the Netherlands, bicycle.

The air purifier is about seven meters high and opens up during the day. It has a silver color and looks like large shutters. It works more or less the same as small purifiers for the home, but then without ozon. It works with an ion technology that Daan Roosegaarde Studio patented. Put simply, ions are atoms that are not magnetic, but they work in a similar way. Ion can be charged positive or negative. They attract the opposite and that way, ions can be made to attract materials like CO2.

Watch the inspiring and friendly movie explanation of Daan Roosegaarde himself here

All these amazing photos are taken from the website of Daan Roosegaarde Studio.



Good to see you! I'm Yvette, founder & editor at Museologue. This place serves you stories on cool careers, bold life choices, mind buzzing art, personal leadership, travel, and all the other inspiring things people do and create!
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