Thai designers plan to construct a bike that absorbs pollution and releases purified air
(Pic: Red Dot Award)
Imagine a bike that’s fast, looks great and cleans the air as you fly by?
It all sounds a bit improbable, but Bangkok designers Lightfog propose to create an electric bike that includes an air filter mounted on the handlebars.
In the same way plants generate oxygen through photosynthesis, this would release clean air from a reaction with water and electricity.
“We want to design products which can reduce the air pollution in the city,” Creative director Silawat Virakul told the Fastcoexist website. “So we decided to design a bike because we thought that bicycles are environmentally friendly vehicles for transportation.
“Riding a bicycle can reduce traffic jam[s] in a city. Moreover, we wanted to add more value to a bicycle by adding its ability to reduce the pollution.”
Over 500 cities across the globe now have cycle-hire schemes, aimed at increasing the uptake of cycling as an effective way to reduce carbon emissions from cars and ensure populations stay fit.
Riding a bike to work rather than driving could cut household emissions by as much as 6%.
The design won an award at last year’s Red Dot international design awards.
Plans to build a prototype are in the pipeline, but specific details about how often the filter and battery would need to be changed, how much air the tool could filter and at which speeds, have not yet been determined.