Company captures air pollution in India to create beautiful tiles
Carbon Craft Design works with businesses and factories that are looking for solutions to their high greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon Craft Design, a startup company based in Mumbai, India has developed a first of its kind product—decorative building tiles made with carbon dioxide captured from the air. Tejas Sidnal, an architect and researcher from Mumbai, was aware of the technological abilities to capture pollution from the air but wanted to find a use for the contaminants in an innovative and visually-appealing way.
India is home to some of the most polluted cities on Earth that often see dangerous air quality levels.. Ghaziabad, a suburb in New Delhi, has been ranked the world’s most polluted city for several years in a row. The average concentration of PM 2.5, a type of air pollutant that poses a significant risk to human health, in Ghaziabad was 110.2 in 2019, a level that is nine times higher than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regards as healthy.
Sidnal founded Carbon Craft Design in 2016 and uses local craft to create building materials with air pollution. According to the World Green Building Council, the building and construction industry is the largest consumer of raw materials and is responsible for 39 per cent of all carbon emissions. Signal was inspired to use his architectural experience to use both technology and design to create building tiles since this material can have historic significance and is in high demand.
The Carbon Tiles are made with a variety of shapes and patterns and have been used in living spaces, stores, and offices. Credit: Carbon Craft Design
The carbon that is used to make the tiles is harvested from businesses and factories that are looking for solutions to their high greenhouse gas emissions. The pollution that is collected from these companies goes through a purification process that removes heavy metal impurities and is then added to a mixture of cement and other materials, such as marble derivatives.
Each tile is made by hand and approximately 70 per cent of each tile is made from recycled material.
Credit: Carbon Craft Design
Carbon Craft Design states that their process consumes less energy compared to conventional ceramic tiles and the Carbon Tiles pass all standard tests that cement tiles undergo. In addition to their comparable performance to traditional materials, Carbon Tiles are significantly safer for the environment.
“One Carbon Tile is equivalent to preventing 30,000 litres of air from being polluted, that is how much we breathe in one day,” the company states.
Thumbnail credit: Carbon Craft Design
