The new ink is made from reused air pollution-good

2021-11-12 11:33:23 By : Ms. Caroline Shen

The writing style is more powerful than the sword. You ask what is more powerful than a pen? simple. Graviky Labs air ink pen. "How can a pen be stronger than any other pen," you asked angrily. Most fountain pens use traditional ink, which is produced in a process that involves burning fossil fuels. Air ink pens are different-instead of burning fossil fuels to produce ink, the Graviky laboratory actually collects and reuses carbon from existing air pollution. Their production process is actually fighting climate change, not contributing to climate change. This is good because air pollution is a major environmental health problem, and according to the World Health Organization, about 7 million people die every year.

Anirudh Sharma, co-founder of Graviky, said: “Pollution is a bad thing, but pollution happens to be a good raw material for making ink.” As early as 2012, when Anirudh, then a student of the MIT Media Lab, was visiting India, he took a photo. Zhang's photo of a diesel generator blowing black exhaust gas on a stained wall was enlightened. "You shouldn't need to burn new fossil fuels just to make ink. Fossil fuels are already burning." He returned to MIT and successfully modified an inkjet printer with a few friends in 2013. Use ink collected from candle soot to print. Early success led to more repairs, and soon they invented a breakthrough device called Kaalink.

Kaalink is a small cylindrical filter that is connected to the tailpipe of the vehicle and collects soot, which Graviky then turns into ink. The equipment can be reused and can filter "85-95%" of smoke and dust emissions. Although the filter cannot prevent CO2 gas from entering the atmosphere, the smoke and dust it captures would otherwise be a very dangerous environmental pollutant. This pollutant, called PM 2.5, can cause serious health problems, such as asthma and lung diseases. The entire process of Graviky Labs, from manufacturing Kaalink, collecting and processing soot, to producing black ink, is carbon neutral. Each 30ml bottle of Air-Ink is equivalent to about 45 minutes of vehicle soot emissions.

In terms of improving air quality, Air-Ink cannot compete with the recent improved technology used by automobiles to combat pollution, but it can be applied to millions of old vehicles, especially in developing countries where pollution laws are “rare”. It is rarely enforced. According to Anirudh, "Pollution is nothing more than a resource that we have not harvested." We allow them to disperse because we have never known their value. "Air-Ink may not be the panacea for addressing climate change, but Anirudh hopes that this is just one of many ways to start using pollution effectively: "This is a beginning, and it can inspire several others to start looking for new forms of waste and lie outside. ,did not use. "