Sharma recently invented "Kaala," a device that can gobble up harmful pollutants² and instantly repurpose them, with a little help from alcohol and oil, into black printer ink.

 

One day, Sharma hopes to commercialize the device so it can live in every home around the world.

 

The idea came to him after one-too-many smog-filled trips to his home country of India.

 

"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?'"

 

For the device to work, it first needs to be exposed to exhaust. In his demo, Sharma uses the flame of a candle.

 

While the candle burns, a suction pump pulls in the surrounding air to a simple mechanism³ that separates the carbon black — a byproduct of combustion⁴ — from the rest of the air. It then traps the soot⁵ in a small chamber⁶ to be mixed with alcohol — in this case, vodka — and a drop of olive oil.

 

Lastly, the newly formed liquid can be injected into an ordinary ink cartridge⁷ for everyday use.

 

Sharma admits the black could still be blacker. Since it was designed as a research project, Kaala would also need to hold up against formal toxicity⁸ standards before it can hit the market.

 

"With a little bit of research," he says, "it can become as good as the printing ink HP sells to you."

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