There’s a new onesie that could clean the air in Beijing, and it’s creators are hoping it catches on.
The onesie works by incorporating “cold plasma” technology developed by Squair into a node on the back of the suit. According to Squair, the cold plasma block works by using a high voltage to split oxygen molecules—O2—into their separate atoms. These atoms are reactive, and want to bond with other things in the air, like dust particles, toxic gases, or bacteria. The dust particle example is perhaps easiest to envision: tiny dust particles are easy to inhale, but if oxygen atoms bond with them, they form into larger clusters that aren’t so easily breathed in.
The suit also includes a sensor that measures the concentration of dangerous gases in the air. Of course, one person’s gadget-suit isn’t going to make any real impact on the city’s concerning air quality (and Akkersdijk says it would be unaffordable to produce for sale right now anyway), but it’s a novel concept of using wearable tech to both quantify and improve your immediate surroundings.
The main point of the BB.Suit is to show how this kind of tech can be quite seamlessly integrated into clothing, rather than tacked on top or shoved in a pocket somewhere. Akkersdijk explained that an earlier version of the BB.Suit made for SXSW incorporated functionalities suitable for that environment: rather than air purifying tech it had wifi and GPS capabilities, and allowed people to upload songs to the “wearable platform.”
[Source: Motherboard]
