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 Riding a bike instead of driving a car may be the more environmentally friendly choice of transport, but could bicycles actually help fight pollution more directly? The Netherlands’ Studio Roosegaarde claims the answer is a resounding “yes” — and it’s got its eyes set on Beijing’s notoriously high levels of smog to prove its point. 
 
 Right now, the Smog-Free Bicycle is still just a concept, but it’s a pretty darn intriguing one that’s already captured our interest. “It is still in development, but as with our Smog Free Tower, it sucks up the dirty air and releases clean air in its vicinity,” creator Daan Roosegaarde told Digital Trends. 
 
 The Smog Free Tower that Roosegaarde refers to is a 23-foot wind-powered structure that essentially functions as a giant air purifier. In a study by Eindhoven University of Technology, the technology used for the Smog Free Tower was found to remove up to 70 percent of the ingested PM10 and up to 50 percent of the ingested PM2.5 — two of the pollutants which contribute to smog. In an open field in calm weather, the Smog Free Tower is able to cause smog reductions of more than 20 meters around it. 
 
 Roosegaarde’s idea is to now take that technology on the move with a bicycle that releases positively-charged ions into the air, which then capture pollutants and suck them back inside. “It reflects our drive to activate new solutions together with citizens, makers, NGOs and governments towards smog-free cities,” he continued. “The Smog Free Bicycle, along with Smog Free Tower and Smog Free Jewellery, are part of the larger Smog Free Project. More concepts will be added along the journey.” 
 
 At present, Roosegaarde said the team is working on a prototype, which it will be developing with a partner in China and the Netherlands. One possibility is that the bike will be used in local bikesharing programs in China, such as Mobike. There’s no word on when it might be available as a commercial product that international customers can get their hands on, but hopefully we won’t be waiting too much longer. 

 Sitting in a field in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, the 23-foot-high Smog Free Tower looks a little like a giant fan. It’s actually a park-scale air purifier, designed to pull in the city’s pollution, filter it, and create a bubble of breathable air for people passing by. In new tests, researchers found that the device can help–though only in a small area. 
 
 When the tower–which was designed by artist Daan Roosegaarde in 2015, and temporarily installed in Beijing in 2016–sucks in surrounding air in an open field, the test found that it can capture 70% of PM10, tiny particles of pollution that can lodge in the lungs. When the filtered air is released, mixing with the dirty air around it, the result is air with an up to a 45% reduction in PM10 pollution within 20 meters of the tower. The tower also reduces another form of pollution, PM2.5, by as much as 25%. The results were contrary to a 2016 test by the China Forum of Environmental Journalists that saw little benefit to the tower when it was installed in Beijing (the team behind the tower says that those tests were not based on validated measurements; the new research was led by a scientist from Eindhoven University of Technology). 
 
 For Tianjin–the sixth most populated city in the world, where heavy smog shut down the airport in December 2016–or for other polluted cities, a network of smog-sucking towers every 20 meters would likely be impractical. But Roosegaarde, who designed the tower as part of his larger Smog Free Project, believes that the technology could help provide some relief as longer-term solutions (like China’s $361 billion investment in renewable energy) scale up. His design for a smog-eating bicycle uses similar technology. The projects, along with rings and other jewelry made from the collected pollution, also serve to deliver a message about the need for change. 
 
 “This is stuff we were sucking up from the urban sky,” Roosegaarde said in a recent video about the project as he held up a plastic bag filled with black pollution. “It’s the same as 17 cigarettes a day. That is insane. When did we say yes to that? This is not the bright future you and I imagined.” 

 Daan Roosegaarde and his team of experts have created the world's first smog vacuum cleaner. The 7-meter tall SMOG FREE TOWER uses patented positive ionisation technology to produce smog free air in public spaces, allowing people to breathe and experience clean air for free. It is equipped with environment-friendly technology, cleans 30.000 m3 per hour and uses very little green electricity. The SMOG FREE TOWER provides a local solution for clean air such as in parks. The effect of the SMOG FREE TOWER has been validated by the results compiled by the Eindhoven University of Technology. 
 
 Creating a tangible souvenir, Roosegaarde designed the SMOG FREE RING of compressed smog particles. By sharing a SMOG FREE RING you donate 1000 m3 of clean air to the city. In 2017, Roosegaarde presents a new addition to Smog Free Project: SMOG FREE BICYCLE. The innovative bicycle inhales polluted air, cleans it, and releases clean air around the cyclist. 
 
 Daan Roosegaarde: "True beauty is not a Louis Vuitton bag or a Ferrari, but clean air and clean energy."
– With pollution levels in pockets of India and China reaching deadly levels, innovators around the world are designing and engineering ways to fight the war on smog. One device, a 23-foot-tall wind-powered air purifier called the Smog Free Tower, sucks in air from its surroundings and filters out tiny pollution particles that might otherwise find a home in our lungs. Designed by Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde in 2015, it was installed in Beijing in 2016 and found to be not all that helpful in a test conducted by the China Forum of Environmental Journalists. But a scientist has conducted new tests on the tower, now installed in a field in Tianjin, and says that it actually outperforms previous findings, capturing up to 70% of PM10 and 25% of PM2.5 (two pollution particles), reports Fast Company. Roosegaarde says that while the tower only has a limited impact on the air 65 feet around it (when filtered air is combined with surrounding air, the effect is air containing 45% less PM10, per the new test), the smog-fighting tower could still provide relief and become part of a longer-term solution. Under the larger Smog Free Project, he's also designing bicycles that spit out positively charged ions that capture pollutants, reports Digital Trends. Roosegaarde says his team is building a prototype and hopes to develop a partnership between the Netherlands and China to install the bikes into local bike-sharing programs such as Mobike. (California is home to eight of the 10 US cities with the worst air pollution.)