Design professor Qu Song wants to put streetlights to work during the day by equipping them to filter air. Photo: Courtesy of Qu Song
When hearing the phrases air pollution or gray skies, mask and Beijing cough will naturally come to mind. But business opportunities can also come from these bad conditions. Metro Beijing brings you a selection of pollution-inspired innovations.
Breathing streetlight
Streetlights provide illumination during the night, but remain idle in the day. But as an item that is on many streets throughout the city, a street lamp can be used to deal with air pollution. Its street-side placement puts it in close proximity to the pollution-causing cars.
Qu Song, professor from the Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University, invented a kind of streetlight that can breathe in polluted air and exhale out purified air.
"I designed an in-car air purifier in 2009, and after I learned the tail pipe pollution contributed a lot to air pollution, I wanted to move air purifiers outside, to the streets," Qu said.
His 12-meter-tall streetlight has a porous body, two solar panels to accumulate sunlight and a wind wheel to gather wind energy on the top. All the gathered energy is stored and partly used to light up the energy-efficient LED lamp on the top to provide illumination and also used to provide energy for the air purification.
Inside the pole, there are two fans which can suck in polluted air from the bottom holes. The air then moves upward to two tiers of chemicals and an ozone lamp. The purified air then is exhaled out through the holes at the top of the lamppost.
"This breathing streetlight uses solar energy. There are no wires necessary, making it portable," Qu explained.
He is currently waiting for investments, so the breathing lamppost may take a while to hit the market.
Pollutant-absorbing card
The respiring streetlight can tackle the air pollution outdoors, but under the PM2.5 skies, staying indoors doesn't ensure safety. Interior contaminants such as formaldehyde and odd odors from the sewage can be problematic, too.
Normally, to tackle indoor air pollution, people try to air out the space, buy more green plants or use air purifiers. But those might cause secondary pollution. Kang Shoufang, director from Dexuan Environment Material Co., Ltd, says his invention can erase the headache.
His solution is nanocat, a B5 paper-sized card which can purify air in 1 square meter through chemical elements combined with nanotechnology. It can be used in cars, bathrooms and any other living space.
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