On a quest to deploy technology that makes an impact, a small group at Graviky Labs in Bengaluru have developed an idea that could possibly reduce pollution in the city – painting with pollution. The team have realised the potential of capturing pollution and repurposing it to use as ink, thus creating a beautiful amalgamation of technology and design to make an impact.
Graviky Labs is a MIT Media Lab Spin-off co-founded by MIT Media Lab alumnus Anirudh Sharma, Nikhil Kaushik and Nitesh Kadyan. “At Graviky Labs, we fuse disciplines, technologies, design thinking to build high impact deployable systems, products and visions,” says Anirudh. “Our current area of work is applying high technology and design thinking to environment issues.”
How did the concept of making ink from pollution come about? Nikhil quotes Buckminster Fuller, “‘Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.’ We found a way to use it. The idea came during Anirudh’s stint at MIT Media Lab. Carbonaceous emissions from engines was black/dark in colour. Anirudh came up with the idea of capturing pollution and repurposing it as ink. We thought what if we could use it as a pigment for colouring. We tied up with several designers, artists, chemists, and automobile experts to make this a reality. Since then we, have made significant effort to bring this concept to reality.”
Air-Ink, is the first ink made of recycled air pollution. Nikhil takes us through the three-step process of its creation. “At first stage, we use our proprietary technology “KaalinkTM” to capture soot emitted from vehicles. It is a contraption retrofitted to the exhaust pipe of vehicles to capture the outgoing pollutants. In the second stage the soot collected by the device undergoes various proprietary processes to remove heavy metals and carcinogens. The end product is purified carbon pigment. In the third and final stage, the carbon is used to make different types of inks and paints.”
2500 hours and 150 litresGraviky Labs have procured about 150 litres of Air-Ink from 2500 hours of collecting carbon emissions. “We should be out in market by end of this year,” says Anirudh. “We are planning to manufacture inks in India and are in the process of setting up distribution channel to take it to the people across the world.”
While our aim is to capture pollution through our KaalinkTM units, to maximise the re-use of pollution, we plan to capture carbon emissions from other polluting sources such as chimneys/generators.” The company has filed for patents.
The futureThe team at Graviky Labs received an overwhelming response for their inks from across the world proving that ‘Recycling pollution’ is potentially as powerful as plastics and paper. “Artists around the world have shown interest in environment sustainability,” says Anirudh. “Our goal is to take our inks anywhere people want to use it and do our bit towards reducing pollution. We are working improving the efficiency of capturing processes. A separate effort is being made to broaden our portfolio by adding more varieties of inks and paints.”
Bringing together artistsAnirudh believes that artists are an integral part of taking this idea forward, and that it is their work that gives expression to their inks. “The impact factor is such that one 30ML pen of Air-ink captures approximately 40 to 50 minutes of emissions, which are purified before being converted. We are talking with a lot of artists and galleries to explore different collaborations to spread this idea.
What nextAnirudh points out that, while renewable sources of energies have made progress, thermal power continues to be one of the major sources of power. “As long as thermal power is the primary source of electricity, even using electric cars is all about shifting your exhaust pipe to the chimneys of massive power plants outside the city limits.”
“We cannot wait for clean energy to replace polluting fuels. There are ways reduce the impact of pollution instantly and use it as a resource. Our inks are one of such use. There are other uses too. Our team is already working on repurposing the soot to make carbon nano-tubes. We are capturing the pollution which would have otherwise gone into our lungs. Re-purposing it into ink provide double benefits – reduced air pollution and recycling carbon for meeting your per-existing printing/painting/art needs.”
