Beijing now has a giant tower to help address its problem on air pollution, particularly smog.

The two-story building called Smog Free Tower, which is part of the Smog Free Project started by Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde and his team, is situated in a park and was inaugurated earlier this week during the Beijing Design Week.

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The seven-meter tall tower is designed to act as a vacuum and has the capacity to clean nearly 40,000 cubic yards of air every hour. 

It is the result of Roosegaarde's collaboration with Delft Technology University and European Nano Solutions. It uses ion technology to suck in small pollution particles. Once these particles are inside the structure, counter electrodes are used to attach these particles to negatively charged surface. The clean air is expelled through the vents created in the lower part of the building.

Roosegaarde claimed that no ozone is produced during the process as particles are charged using positive voltage instead of negative. It is also energy-efficient as the tower requires only 1,400 watts for its operations.

It is believed that the tower can improve the surrounding's air quality by as much as 75 percent, thus addressing China's air pollution problem.

The Dutch artist is also backed by Chinese government through its Ministry of Environmental Protection. He is scheduled to display his project in four more areas.

China has expressed its commitment to environment protection in its 13^th Five-Year plan unveiled last March. The country has, in fact, allocated $2.6 trillion worth of investment in environmental protection for 2016 until 2020.

TagsBeijing, Beijing Design Week, Daan Roosegaarde