The technology behind the Smog Free Tower cannot solve Beijing's air pollution problem and the project is mainly about raising public awareness of smog, the Beijing-based Science and Technology Daily quoted an environment journalist organization as saying Thursday.
The introduction of the purifier aims at guiding people to join smog management efforts, read a statement from the China Forum of Environmental Journalists (CFEJ), an NGO under the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
The 7-meter-tall tower can suck in around 75 percent of the PM 2.5 and PM 10 within a 1,660-square-meter area and then release purified air to create a "bubble" of fresh air around it, according to Daan Roosegaarde, the Dutch designer behind the tower.
The tower can clean 30,000 cubic meters of air per hour through its patented ozone-free ion technology, said the website of the Studio Roosegaarde.
Liu Guozheng, CFEJ secretary-general, last week told the Legal Daily that bringing the tower to Beijing is intended to warn the authorities never to forget their duties and encourage the public to pull together to combat the smog.
However, the CFEJ warned that relying on the purifiers to solve the capital's smog problem is as fantastical as Arabian Nights, the collection of traditional Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales.
The CFEJ has invited a third-party environmental monitoring organization to test the effect of the purifier on the meteorological and smog conditions in Beijing. It will publish the results as soon they are available.
The tower will soon be opened to the public, and will eventually tour the country, according to the Legal Daily.
