Could We Turn Air Pollution Into Ink?

that can turn air pollution into ink. A company called Gravicki Labs is transforming the microscopic particulate matter in machinery exhaust resulting from burning fossil fuels what we might call soot and is more officially called PM two point five into black inc whether from cars and trucks or generators and factories. What would have been inhaled by millions or dirty buildings or contaminated water and soil can now be

used for drawing and printing. As the Gravicki Labs website states, our vision is to arrest the urban PM air pollution in a way that it doesn't reach our lungs or waste streams. Their goal is quote to confine and mind that captured pollution into high grade inks that everyone can use to express themselves through art or writing. The ink they make from this process is called air Ink. Graviki Labs grew out of the work that company co founder Annie rouch Armad did as a graduate student with m

I T Media Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During his studies, on a trip home to India in twelve, he took a photo of a white wall covered with a triangle of soot caused by diesel generator exhaust. He saw potential in the pollution. Carbon black, a byproduct of the incomplete burning of petroleum products, is normally used to produce ink, as well as as a component in rubber paints and plastics.

Rather than burn new fossil fuels for ink production, Terma and his colleagues wanted to create ink from vehicle and machinery exhaust already being produced, thereby also reducing particular matter in the air from these sources. Experiment with candle soot and an improvised printer cartridge led to a lab set up in India in twenty where pollution and restrictions are not as strict as in the US, allowing for easier

particular capture and more effective testing. The trial and error of attaching strange equipment two cars in Bengalore for capturing PM two point five produced a small device they named call Inc, which can be retrofitted to exhaust pipes. This electro mechanical device can capture of PM two point five in the exhaust without any adverse effect on engine performance. Once the particular matter is filtered, ground to a standard size and liquefied in a Gravicky Labs proprietary process, the

result is a densely colored, free flowing black ink. One thirty million liter pen is the equivalent of forty five minutes of diesel production. A number of Indian companies have contacted Gravicky Labs to dispose a particular matter that otherwise would end up in a river or landfill. Kickstarter campaign raised more than forty thousand Singapore dollars equal to a bit over twenty nine thousand in US bunny for more

than six and eighty contributors. In addition, Singapore based tied Or Beer partnered with Graviki Labs for an art campaign making air Inc available to artists and cities such as Hong Kong, Berlin and London to create murals and other public artworks. And yes, air Inc Is available for purchase. Though they're not a sponsor of this show. We just

think they're cool. Since Gravicky Labs has been able to clean one point six trillion leaders that's trillion cubic inches of air, producing more than one thousand, two hundred liters of air inc. But with the Colink device capable of customization for larger applications including factory smokestacks and capturing particulates directly from the air, those numbers should only increase. Charma and his colleagues could then scale up to tackle industrial

applications including inkjet printers, textiles, and publishing. As inventors and entrepreneurs, the Graviki Labs team would be able to breathe a little easier, and so would we. Today's episode was written by Jim Marion and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more in this lots of other topics, visit our home

planet how stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.