You likely use a pen most days of your life, but you have probably put little thought into where the ink came from and how it was produced. Black ink – the most commonly used colour – is created by partially combusting hydrocarbons to finely dividing the carbon molecules that can then be turned into soot, thus the mass amount of CO2 is emitted to generate the ‘carbon black’ colour (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2016). Graviky Labs, once an MIT Lab experiment, wanted to create a device that could capture air pollution and upcycle the greenhouse gas particles into a safe water-based ink. As a successful Kickstarter that used crowd-funding to see their initiative to light in 2016, the result of this endeavour is various carbon-negative ink products, including AIR–INK®, their most popular ink product that comes in bulk or pen form, Flexographic Ink for commercial packaging, and Silk Screen Ink for apparel, plastics, and automotive interiors. The same technology used to capture emission particles and transform them into ink can be scaled to fit any industrial setting like boats, industrial yards, and train carts, allowing the industry to create their own ink needed on-site with their own carbon emissions. This is transformative for countries with emerging economies like India where Graviky Labs conversion devices are becoming increasingly popular. Graviky Labs is truly fighting against climate change by trying to decarbonize global production processes in a mutually beneficial way.
Graviky Labs. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.graviky.com/
Categories
Climate Change, Industry/Natural Commodities, Internet of Things, Pollution
Air Pollution Robot
The dangers of air pollution to human health are well documented, though the traditional methodology of collecting and reporting on sample lags behind the need to keep abreast and regulate air pollution in a meaningful amount of time. The use of drones and robots have been identified by researchers as resources that can be tweaked […]
Artificial Life, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Industry/Natural Commodities, Lifestyle, Monitoring
Telematic Rivers
Erica Kermani’s artwork seeks to answer a central question: if rivers were seeing an equal, living entity, would humans take issues like climate change threatening them more seriously? In his year-long art exhibition in 2017, Kermani, in collaboration with Diana Salcedo & Jeana Chesnik, created a new forum of interaction between humans and rivers to […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies
Co-occupied Boundaries
Art is easily found in nature but rarely is what considered art today inherently natural. The concept of co-occupied mediums that serve to be both functional for nature and aesthetically pleasing to people is being actively explored by Asya Ilgun and Phil Ayres, from the CITAstudio at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In […]
Climate Change, Ecological Monitoring, Lifestyle, Monitoring, Pollution, Visual Technologies