Anirudh Sharma of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is using carbon from the air to create a cheaper alternative to the printer inks currently on the market.
Sharma’s “Kaala” device takes in harmful pollutants and instantly repurposes them into black printer ink, by means of alcohol and oil, Tech Insider reported. He hopes to commercialise the device eventually, so every home around the world can benefit from it.
Inspired by smog-filled trips to his home country of India, Sharma created the device, which works by a suction pump pulling in the surrounding air into a mechanism that separates the carbon black from the rest of the air. The soot is then trapped in a small chamber and mixed with alcohol, such as vodka, and a drop of olive oil.
The liquid can then be injected into a cartridge for printing. The scientist says the ink could be blacker and needs to be held up against formal toxicity standards before it hits the market. He estimates a chimney would take only 10 minutes to fill a HP cartridge.
He said that “with a little bit of research” it could be as good as OEM ink and could be scaled up to the size of an industrial wall fan. As printer ink is esentially “carbon black mixed with a few chemicals”, homemade alternatives would “definitely be much, much lower” in cost.