Every year, more than four to five million people die due to exposure to outdoor air pollution around the world. This petri dish that you are looking at contains approximately 20 minutes' worth of pollution captured off a pyrolysis plant. This is PM 2.5. These particles -- you can see it right now, but when they're out there in the air, you won't see them. These are so tiny that our lungs -- our bodies cannot filter them, and they end up in our bodies -- give us asthma and lung cancer if not treated in the right time.
每年,全球有超过五百万人 因暴露于外界的大气污染中 而死亡。 你们现在看到的这个有盖培养皿 容纳着大约相当于在20分钟内 从一个热解装置内收集的污染物。 这就是PM2.5(可吸入颗粒物)。 虽然这些微粒现在肉眼可见, 但是当它们散布在 大气中时,几乎看不到。 这些颗粒是如此之微小, 以至于我们的肺—— 或者说我们的身体不能将它们滤除, 所以它们会滞留在体内—— 如果没有得到及时的治疗, 将会让我们患上哮喘和肺癌。
On a trip back to India, when I was a student in 2012, I took this picture. This picture stuck in my head. On one side, you see this exhaust of a diesel generator, the same generator which is a sign of human progress, which is a sign of rapid industrialization and what we have become as a society in the last 100 years, generating energy. But on the other side, you see this very interesting triangular, black-colored swatch, that is produced by the same residual particulate waste created by the emissions of the generator.
2012年,当我还是一个 学生的时候,有一次我回印度, 我拍下了这张照片。 这个画面此后一直 盘踞在我的脑海中。 一方面,你们可以看到 一个柴油发电机排出的废气, 正是这样的柴油发电机 标志着人类文明的进步, 标志着快速工业化, 也标志着作为一个社会,我们在 过去的100年里为了聚获得能量, 做出了怎样的努力。 但是在另一方面, 你们也能看到这个非常 有趣的三角状黑色图案, 它正是用与柴油发电机 排放的完全相同的 残留颗粒状废弃物创造出来的。
Now, this picture gave me an idea and got me thinking about rethinking both pollution and inks, because it was making that black-colored mark. Now, the reality is that most of the black ink that we use conventionally is traditionally produced by conventionally burning fossil fuels in factories. There are factories around the world that are burning fossil fuels to produce carbon black, to make black inks that we use on an everyday basis. But given that millions of liters of fossil fuels are already being burned out there by our cars, our engines and our exhaust out there, what if you could capture that pollution and use it to recycle and make those inks?
这张照片让我产生了一个大胆的想法, 也让我开始重新考虑 关于污染物和墨水的事, 因为它留下了那样黑色的印记。 当下的现实是,我们通常 使用的大多数黑色墨水 是用传统工艺生产的, 也就是照惯例在工厂内 焚烧化石燃料所得。 世界上许多工厂靠焚烧化石燃料 来生产碳黑, 进而制作出我们每天 都使用的黑墨水。 但是在数以百万计升的化石燃料 已经被我们的汽车, 引擎和排气装置焚烧殆尽的前提下, 如果可以捕获那些污染物, 回收利用并做成墨水会怎么样呢?
I decided to give this experiment a shot. I went back to my lab back in Boston and conducted a small experiment. In Boston, I couldn't find much pollution to play with, so I resorted to using a candle. This was an experiment. I burnt a candle, built this contraption that would suck in that candle soot, mixed it with some vegetable oil and vodka, because to a DIY hacker, these were really easily available.
我决定尝试一下这个实验。 我回到我在波士顿的实验室, 进行了一个小实验。 在波士顿,我找不到 那么多污染物来做实验, 所以我转而使用了一根蜡烛。 就是这么个实验。 我点燃一根蜡烛, 制作了这个可以吸入蜡烛烟雾的装置, 并把它与些许植物油和伏特加酒混合, 毕竟对一个DIY狂热分子来说, 这些是最唾手可得的材料了。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And after mixing them, you could churn out a very rudimentary form of ink that would go into a cartridge, and now you could print with it. This was my "Hello, World!" of experimenting with printing with pollution. This is the same pollution that I showed you in the petri dish, which is the result of any fossil fuel that is being burned out there.
将它们混合之后, 你就可以大量炮制 一种非常初级的墨水, 它以被储存在墨盒里, 而现在你们就可以用它打印了。 这就是我像“你好,世界!”般的第一次 用污染物做成墨水的实验。 这就是我刚向你们展示的 有盖培养皿中的污染物, 也是所有那些化石燃料 被焚烧后的产物。
In 2015, I decided to take this experimentation forward and set up a lab in India to work on the capture and recycling of air pollution. In the good times, the lab used to look something like this. But experimentations were not always controlled, and disasters happened. And while experimentation would happen, the lab would end up looking something like this. Well, we knew where we wanted to go, but we were not sure how exactly to reach there. The passersby who used to go by that lab through that building used to, at times, think, "These guys are making bombs in there," because there was too much fire, wires and smoke in the same vicinity.
在2015年,我决定 将这个实验向前推进, 并在印度成立了一个实验室, 来从事捕获和回收利用 大气污染物的工作。 在情况尚佳的时候, 实验室通常看起来像这样。 但是并不是每一次实验 都能被精准控制, “灾难”时常发生。 当实验失败的时候, 实验室就会变得一片狼藉。 虽然我们对最终目标都心知肚明, 但是却并不清楚具体怎样去实现。 那些经常穿过那栋楼, 路过我们实验室的过路人 时常暗想:“这些家伙 正在那儿制造炸弹呢吧。” 那是因为有太多火焰, 导线和浓烟聚集在一处了。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
We decided, let's move to a garage and take experiments forward. We took a garage, and during the early stages, we were driving around Bangalore with contraptions like these. This is an early-stage prototype. Imagine the looks people gave us, "What are these cars driving around doing?" This is an early-stage prototype of our system that would capture pollution that is being released from a conventional diesel-based car. This is an early stage of the technology. We advanced the technology and created this into this version that would capture pollution from static sources of pollution, like a diesel generator. If you see, all the fumes disappear as soon as you turn this machine on. Without affecting the performance of the engine, we are able to capture 95 percent worth of pollution released from the diesel generator. This is the particulate matter that we are talking about that we capture, in this case, within three to four hours of operation of a generator.
我们决定,不如搬去 车库继续推进实验吧。 我们找到了一个车库,在初期阶段, 我们开车带着这样的装置 在班加罗尔四处转。 这就是一个初期的雏形。 可以想象人们向我们投来的眼神, “这些车四处兜转是在做什么?” 这是一个捕获大气 污染物的早期原型机, 它捕获的是从传统 柴油汽车中排放的污染物。 这就是这项技术的早期阶段。 我们后来改进了这项技术, 并创造出了这个 能从静止污染源捕获污染物的版本, 比如一个柴油发电机。 可以看到,所有烟气都在 我们刚启动这机器的时候消失了。 在没有影响到引擎性能的前提下, 我们可以捕获相当于95% 由柴油发电机排放的污染物。 这正是我刚刚谈到的 我们要捕获的东西, 在这个例子中,就是在发电机 工作3到4小时间所产生的污染物。
And while our experiments and our research was advancing, a very big company, a very big brand, approached us and said, "We want to take this idea further with you guys, and take this further in a very big celebrated form." They said, "Let's do a global art campaign with the inks that you are making off this pollution." I'll show you what the ink looks like. So, this pen is made by recycling 40 to 50 minutes of that car pollution that we are talking about, the same pollution that is in the petri dish. And it's a very sharp black that you can write with. So I'm going to write ... PM 2.5, that's incorrect. So this is a very sharp black that is generated by the same pollution.
当我们的实验和 研究正在取得进展时, 一家非常大的公司, 一个很大的品牌找到我们说, “我们想和你们一起推进这个想法, 并将它进一步发展成 一种非常知名的形式。“ 他们说,“就用你们用污染物做的墨水, 举办一场全球性的艺术活动吧。” 我来展示一下这个墨水是什么样子。 这支笔是通过对我们所谈论的 40到50分钟内收集的汽车废弃物 回收利用制成的, 跟那个有盖培养皿中的 污染物成分相同。 它有一种可以用来 书写的很明晰的黑色。 那么我要写下…… PM 2.5,再划掉。 所以这是一种用相同污染物 积聚而成的非常明晰的黑色。
After much work on the lab-level research, we got an offer from a big corporation to do a very big trial of this idea. And it happened to be a brand, and we didn't think twice. We said, "Let's go ahead." Inventing in the lab is one thing and taking ideas and deploying them in the real world is completely another. During early stages, we had to resort to using our own houses and own kitchens as our ink-making factories, and our own bedrooms and living rooms as the first assembly line for making these inks. This is my cofounder Nikhil's own bedroom, that is being used to supply inks to artists all around the world, who would paint with AIR-INK. And that's him, delivering AIR-INKs to the ports so that the artists around the world can use it. Soon, we started seeing that thousands of artists around the world started using AIR-INK, and artworks started emerging like this. Soon, thousands of black-and-white, pollution-made artworks started emerging on a global scale. And believe me, for a group of scientists and engineers and inventors, there was nothing more satisfying than that the product of their work is now being used by some of the finest artists around the world.
在从事了许多实验室研究之后, 我们收到一个大公司的邀请, 来进行一次大尝试。 它正好也算是一个大品牌, 所以我们毫不犹豫的答应了。 我们说,“那我们继续吧。” 然而在实验室进行发明创造是一回事, 将点子带到现实世界 实施却完全是另一回事。 在早期阶段, 我们不得不使用自己的家和厨房 作为我们的墨水制造厂, 也要把我们自己的卧室还有起居室, 作为第一条制造这些墨水的流水线。 这是我的合伙人Nikhil自己的卧室, 已经被用来向遍布全球的 艺术家们提供墨水, 他们会用AIR-INK(空气墨水)来作画。 那是他,正在将AIR-INK运送到码头, 这样全球的艺术家们就能用上了。 不久,我们开始看到 全球成千上万的艺术家们 开始使用AIR-INK, 像这样的艺术品也开始出现, 不久,成千上万由污染物 制成的黑白艺术品 开始在全球范围内出现。 相信我,对于一群科学家, 工程师和发明家来说, 没有什么比他们的工作成果 正被全球最富盛名的艺术家 使用更让人心满意足的了。
This is the cover of "Contagious" magazine last year, that was done by using the same ink that we made back in our labs. This is a famous painting by the British artist, Christian Furr, who painted it for the song "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones. Now, there's more to this pen and this ink than just the popular and pop-culture artworks. And now our goal is to create a company that can actually make some black money -- I mean, just money --
这是去年《Contagious》杂志的封面, 它是由我们在实验室制成的 那种墨水制作而成的, 这是一幅英国画家 Christian Furr所作的著名画作, 是为滚石乐队的歌曲 《Paint It Black》所画的。 除了那些流行和通俗文化的作品之外, 还有更多有关这支笔和墨水的故事。 而现在我们的目标是成立一家公司, 能够多赚些“黑”钱, 我是说,多挣钱——
(Laughter)
(笑声)
and high-quality printing processes and inks that can replace the conventional black inks that have been produced for the last thousands of years around the world.
生产高质量的印刷流程和墨水, 甚至可以取代传统意义上的黑色墨水, 尽管它们已经在 全世界被生产了上千年。
Soon after our growing popularity and artworks around the world, we started facing a very different kind of a problem. We started getting spammed by polluters, who would send us bags full of pollution to our office address, asking us, "What can we do with this pollution?" Our lab back in Bombay right now has pollution samples that have come from London, from India, from China, you name it. And this is just the beginning. This polluter sent us this specific image, asking us that these are all bags filled with PM 2.5, and can we recycle it for him if we paid him some money. Well, what would he have done if we did not take that pollution? He would probably find a nearby river or a landfill and dump it over there. But now, because we had the economics of AIR-INK figured out on the other side, we could incentivize him to give us this pollution and make inks from it, and turn it into even more valuable products.
我们的作品在世界各地 越来越受欢迎,不久后, 我们开始面对一个非常不一样的问题。 很多污染企业的邮包接踵而至, 这些企业会把成包的污染物 寄到我们的办公室, 然后问我们:“你们能用 这些污染物做什么?” 我们在孟买的实验室 目前拥有的污染物样品 是从伦敦,印度,中国, 还有其它你们能想到的地方寄来的。 而这仅仅是一个开始。 这个污染企业发给了我们 这些图片,向我们询问, 这些全是装满了PM2.5的袋子, 我们是否可以付他们一些钱 来为他们回收这些东西。 不过,如果我们不要这些污染物, 他又会拿去做什么呢? 他或许会找一条附近的河流 或垃圾堆,将它们丢弃在那里。 但是现在,正因为我们有了 横空出世的AIR-INK经济, 我们可以激励他给我们提供 污染物并用它制成墨水, 再把它进一步变废为宝。
Now, pollution, as we all know, is a global killer. We can't claim that our ink will solve the world's pollution problem. But it does show what can be done if you look at this problem slightly differently. Look at this T-shirt I'm holding right now. This is made from the same AIR-INK I'm talking about. It's made from the same pollution that is inside this petri dish. And the same pollution we are all breathing in when we are walking outdoors. And we are on our way to do better than this.
众所周知,大气污染物 是全球环境杀手。 我们不能断言我们的墨水 能解决全球污染问题。 但是它确实为我们展示了 如果从一个稍微不同的角度看问题, 我们可以做成怎样的事业。 看一下我拿着的这件T恤, 它就是由我所谈到的 那种AIR-INK做成的。 这种墨水由有盖培养皿里的污染物制成, 也与我们在户外散步 所吸入的污染物相同。 而我们正沿着不断改进的道路前行。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢你们的聆听。
(Applause)
(掌声)