A number of innovative technologies have been developed to reduce the amount of pollution in the environment, but this invention is one of the neatest we’ve ever seen!
College student Anirudh Sharma, co-leader of a student-run science lab at MIT, has invented a device called Kaala, which adds alcohol and oil to polluted air and turns it into printed ink.
“Rubbing alcohol+oil substrate+soot= lowtech non-uniform ink . We built a contraption that supplies the ink to HP C6602 inkjet cartridge interfaced with Arduino turning it into ~ 100dpi print platform,” Sharma shares on the device’s website.
The inventor first conjured the idea while channeling childhood memories. He shares:
“(It was) a minor itch that led me to build something cool from observations arising from nostalgia of the days back in India. There’s so much soot/pollution around us, in crowded cities. What if the same could be repurposed to generate ink for printers?”
The Masters student and Research Assistant at the Fluid Interfaces Group also wrote that he believes the model makes smart business sense for existing ink providers. “Companies like HP/Canon make 70 percent of their profits by selling these cartridges at 400% margin,” he said.
This isn’t the first mind-blowing invention Sharma has created. He won the ‘Innovator of the Year’ award from the MIT Tech Review TR35 when he designed footwear to provide the visually impaired better mobility. The insoles in the shoes are connected to a smartphone via Bluetooth so an individual can be guided hands-free.
Who knows what else this brilliant mind will share with the world in the future!
Watch the video above to learn more about his latest invention, and comment your thoughts below!
This article (Ingenious Device Turns Polluted Air Into Printed Ink ) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com
