Daan Roosegaarde has unveiled the next concept in his Smog Free Project – a bicycle that would inhale polluted air, clean it and release it around the cyclist.
The Smog Free Bike is Roosegaarde's latest concept in his quest for unpolluted cities, which has previously seen him design a Smog Free Tower that he installed in Rotterdam, and more recently Beijing.
The tower, which essentially works as a huge vacuum cleaner, creates a pocket of clean air in its vicinity, offering respite from hazardous levels of pollution.
Polluted air is sucked in at the top of the tower, and then purified air is released through vents on its four sides.
While the bike is currently at concept stage, it would work in a similar way to the tower – making sure that the air surrounding the cyclist is clean and safe.
"The bike is a perfect model," Roosegaarde told Dezeen. "It has a double function as it cleans the air and reduces congestion while being healthy and energy-friendly."
The Dutch designer, who heads up his own firm Studio Roosegaarde, sees the bike being implemented through bike sharing programs in China such as Mobike.
"The bicycle is part of the Dutch DNA of course, and Beijing and other cities in China used to be bike cities," he said. "We want to bring back its prestige and follow our ethos of making citizens apart of the solution instead of the problem."
"It will always be connected with big programs of government and green technology and electric cars. They do top-down, we do bottom-up, and we meet in the middle."
Roosegaarde first presented a proposal for an "electronic vacuum cleaner" to remove smog from the skies in 2013. This evolved into a tower, which was unveiled in 2015 along with a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds.
He used the smog particles he has collected to create rings, which were initially given as rewards to Kickstarter supporters.
His series of other environmentally conscious projects range from glow-in-the-dark trees to a group of wind turbines that he turned into a light installation.