A new method for dealing with smog?

[Formless]

[quote="Roosegaarde's "electronic vacuum cleaner" could solve smog problem"]The concept uses buried coils of copper to create an electrostatic field that attracts smog particles, creating a void of clean air above it.

"You can purify the air so you can breathe again," Roosegaarde told Dezeen in an exclusive interview during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. "It creates these holes of 50-60 metres of clean air so you can see the sun again."

[snip all photographs]

Roosegaarde's company Studio Roosegaarde has signed a memorandum of understanding with the mayor of Beijing to create a public park to showcase the technology.

The authorities in Beijing are finally admitting the huge problems caused by smog. This weekend the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center warned children, the elderly and those with heart and breathing problems to stay indoors due to extreme levels of pollutants in the air.

Working with scientists at the University of Delft, Roosegaarde created a working prototype of the project last week. "We have a 5x5 metre room full of smog where we created a smog-free hole of one cubic metre," he said. "And now the question is to apply it in public spaces."

The buried copper coils produce a weak electrostatic field that extends into the sky above. Smog particles are drawn down towards the ground, punching a clean hole in the air and allowing the particles to be collected. The coils can be buried beneath the grass of a park and are completely safe.

"It's a similar principle to if you have a statically charged balloon that attracts your hair," Roosegaarde explained. "If you apply that to smog, to create fields of static electricity of ions, which literally attract or magnetise the smog so it drops down so you can clean it, like an electronic vacuum cleaner."

Roosegaarde had the idea for the project while staying at a hotel in Beijing and looking at OMA's CCTV building from his window. "I saw the CCTV building," he said. "I had a good day when I could see it and I had a bad day when I could not see it. On a bad day the smog is completely like a veil. You don't see anything. I thought, that's interesting, that's a design problem."

Roosegaarde's team will now spend up to 18 months developing the technology before starting work on the ground in Beijing.

Here's the text of the interview between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and Daan Roosegaarde: [ed note-- click the link if you want to read the interview. I'd like to keep this re-post short][/quote]
I don't doubt that this works, but what I want to know is how cost effective this sounds. How does it compare to more conventional solutions to smog? I mean, I know a lot of Chinese cities have it pretty bad, but installing a bunch of these sounds (to my untrained ears) like it would be a pretty expensive measure.

[Grumman]

It isn't a new idea, but it sounds like theirs would be significantly more powerful. I'd want to make sure it didn't have any adverse interactions with electronics or thunderstorms - creating a region that attracts people but also attracts lightning would be a rather bad thing.

[bilateralrope]

What happens to the smog particles after they have been drawn towards the coils ?

[Darth Yoshi]

According to the article, they'll just sit there on the ground until they get collected. Probably what'll happen is that periodically someone will go through and sweep it up or something. Maybe like street cleaners, although admittedly this may not be feasible over grass or other non-pavement terrain.

[Borgholio]

Sounds like a really big Ionic Air Purifier. In the home, they let dust collect on the walls and other surfaces so you can dust them up. In the park, they can probably suck it up with a lawn vacuum.

[Broomstick]

Sounds like a way for the elite to create healthy little parks for themselves while not giving a fuck what happens outside their little enclaves.

[Zaune]

Sounds like a way for the elite to create healthy little parks for themselves while not giving a fuck what happens outside their little enclaves.

Now there's a depressing thought. The one advantage to dealing with smog is that it's not really possible for the movers and shakers to simply ignore it; one can eat imported food and drink bottled water but everyone has to breathe the same air.

[Enigma]

How deep are these coils buried? What measures are being used to keep these coils from being stolen and sold as scrap copper?

[Grumman]

How deep are these coils buried? What measures are being used to keep these coils from being stolen and sold as scrap copper?

Being out of sight and posing an electrocution risk to anyone stupid enough to dig them up?

[krakonfour]

How deep are these coils buried? What measures are being used to keep these coils from being stolen and sold as scrap copper?

In the Chinese main streets with cops every 100m? I don't think they'll be installed far away from the rich people zones.

I see two issues arising however:
-The smog will collect on the ground like soot, not dust that can easily be swiped away.
-Large scale human testing of the effects of electromagnetic emissions never needs to be funded again.

[Marko Dash]

Sounds like a really big Ionic Air Purifier. In the home, they let dust collect on the walls and other surfaces so you can dust them up. In the park, they can probably suck it up with a lawn vacuum.

you know iv'e always wondered if they could make a much upscaled version of those and put them on building roofs.