科學(xué)家將污染物變成打印機(jī)墨水
MIT scientist turns pollution into printer ink
Anirudh Sharma doesn't just want to pull harmful carbon from the air. He wants to offer a cheaper alternative to the exorbitant costs of ordinary printer ink.
阿尼魯?shù)隆は臓栺R不僅想除掉空氣中的有害炭物質(zhì),還希望創(chuàng)造一種更便宜的普通打印機(jī)油墨,解決墨水價(jià)格高昂的問題.
Sharma recently invented "Kaala," a device that can gobble up harmful pollutants and instantly repurpose them, with a little help from alcohol and oil, into black printer ink.
夏爾馬最近發(fā)明了一種名叫"Kaala"的裝置,它能吞掉有害污染物并迅速將其變成有用物質(zhì),只需加點(diǎn)酒精和油,就能生成黑色打印機(jī)墨水.
One day, Sharma hopes to commercialize the device so it can live in every home around the world.
將來,夏爾馬希望能將這個(gè)設(shè)置商業(yè)化,希望世界上的每家每戶都能使用它.
The idea came to him after one-too-many smog-filled trips to his home country of India.
他經(jīng)常去煙霧嚴(yán)重的祖國(guó)印度,如此往返,就有了靈感.
"On a hot summer day, if you take a handkerchief and rub it on your skin, the handkerchief actually turns a little brownish-blackish in color," says Sharma, a scientist at MIT's Media Lab. "So we thought, 'How do we repurpose something we complain about on an everyday basis into something that is a utility?'"
"在酷熱的夏日,如果你拿手帕擦皮膚,手帕就會(huì)變得烏黑,"麻省理工學(xué)院（MIT）媒體實(shí)驗(yàn)室的科學(xué)家夏爾馬說,"所以我們就想'能不能把這種我們天天抱怨的東西變成日常用品呢？'"
For the device to work, it first needs to be exposed to exhaust. In his demo, Sharma uses the flame of a candle.
要讓這個(gè)設(shè)置運(yùn)行,得先把它放在廢氣中.做實(shí)驗(yàn)時(shí),夏爾馬用的是蠟燭燃燒產(chǎn)生的廢氣.
While the candle burns, a suction pump pulls in the surrounding air to a simple mechanism that separates the carbon black — a byproduct of combustion — from the rest of the air. It then traps the soot in a small chamber to be mixed with alcohol — in this case, vodka — and a drop of olive oil.
