Can a giant vacuum simply suck pollutants out of China's tainted air and solve the country's smog problem?
No, not really, said Dutch Artist and smog sucker Daan Roosegaarde, who's designed a device that attracts polluted air and cleans it.
"The real answer has to do with clean cars, different industry and different lifestyles," he told CNN.
The prototype he's designed will be more valuable as a publicity stunt, he said, though he claimed he's tested it and it works. The device will function by creating an electromagnetic field to attract dust particles from the air and unto the ground where they can be cleaned, according to CNN.
"It's like when you have a balloon which has static (electricity) and your hair goes toward it. Same with the smog," Roosegaarde told CNN..
Beijing is the perfect place for his demonstration, not only because it has the world's most famous smog problem but because it also has its worst.
"Beijing is quite good because the smog is quite low, it's in a valley so there's not so much wind," he said. "It's a good environment to explore this kind of thing."
Despite admitting his invention is "not the real answer for smog", Roosegaarde believes it can clear some of the bad air.
"I want to take a park in Beijing, 50m by 50m square, and make it the cleanest park in Beijing," he said.
Roosegaarde, who recently opened a studio in Beijing, has mixed art, electromagnetism, and the environment before. In previous projects, he's designed street lights that ignite only when cars approach, a dance floor that generates electricity, and a road that charges electric cars, CNN reported. See footage of the smart highway below.
