Smog Cleaner

Vocabulary

Video

Transcript

This was the view Daan Roosegaarde had from his window when he visited Beijing three years ago.

The Dutch artist decided to act, and created this innovative solution: a seven-meter high, metal structure that contains an air-purifying machine that catches particles, and turns them into black powder.

Like a giant vacuum cleaner, the tower sucks in the polluted air, and cleans it before releasing it.

Daan Roosegaarde, Designer, Smog-Free Tower Project: “Basically, the design was inspired by Chinese temples, sort of like a clean-air temple.

So the polluted air comes from above, gets cleaned on the nano-level, the ultra-fine particles. And then the clean air comes through here, and actually goes into the area surrounding us, creating areas which are around 75% cleaners than the rest of the city.

So we are now in one of the cleanest spots in Beijing.”

The entire process requires 1,400 watts, or roughly the same amount of electricity needed to run a water boiler, and is generated using wind energy.

But the tower is only one part of Roosegaarde’s smoke-free project. His plan is to collect smoke particles in the tower and compress them into smog-free jewelry.

Daan Roosegaarde, Designer, Smog-Free Tower Project: “So here you see the cube sort of floating in mid-air. This is the incredibly disgusting small particles that we harvested from a thousand cubic meters of clean air, compressing it and shielding it because it’s very polluting.

And we’ve had wedding couples purchasing these, as a sign of true love, giving it to each other.”

According to the artist, each ring carries the equivalent of a thousand cubic meters of air pollution.

The air towers are on display in Beijing before it sets off on a tour of four of China’s most populated cities.

Questions

1. Daan Roosegaarde got the idea of an air-purifying tower while in his laboratory in the Netherlands. True or false?

2. The device is like a vacuum cleaner. What does this mean? How does it clean the air?

3. The design of the smog-free tower is entirely modern in design? Is this right or wrong? Where did Daan get this idea?

4. How is the air dirty? Is there dirt in the air?

5. Is the machine powered by a diesel generator or plugged into an electric socket in order to operate?

6. What numbers or figures did the video mention?

7. This machine will only be featured in Beijing. Yes or no?
 
 

A. How is the air quality in your city? What is the air quality like? Has it been changing over the years?

B. How do people feel about air pollution? Are they concerned, or they don’t care?

C. What is the cause of air pollution? What are the sources of polluted air?

D. At current trends, what will it be like in the future?

E. What is the solution to air pollution? How can air quality be improved?