This Mumbai startup is turning polluted air into carbon tiles
Each carbon tile is equivalent to cleaning 30,000 litres of air. These tiles consume only one-fifth of the energy required to manufacture vitrified tiles.
Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation have caused many toxins to fill the air that we breathe. To address this issue, Carbon Craft Design was founded in 2016 by Tejas Sidnal, which offers a commercial solution for climate change action. It was created with a combined mix of sustainability, craft, design, and technology.
The Mumbai-based design and material innovation company launched a very unique innovation in collaboration with Air-Ink, an Indian startup that turns pollution into ink. The startup developed a technique that involves capturing pollution (carbon) from air and incorporating it to make designer tiles, resulting in the invention of the Carbon Tile.
“Each carbon tile is equivalent to cleaning 30,000 litres of air. Moreover, these tiles consume only one-fifth of the energy required to manufacture vitrified tiles,” Tejas Sidnal told The Better India.
Every tile is handcrafted from beginning to end. The process involves cutting, shaping, joining, filling, and finally forming the tile. The captured carbon is first processed to remove highly toxic metal impurities and then fused with a mixture of cement and marble derivatives to successfully craft carbon tiles.
Choosing tile designs (Image: The Better India)
“We utilised the colour of pollution to our aesthetic advantage and created tiles in shades of black only. But since the pollution source varies each time, the shade of black could also vary,” Kishor Avhad, Lead Designer at CarbonCraft Design told One Earth.
This process requires way less energy than the production of generic tiles. After coming up with a prototype, the team approached traditional handcrafted cement tile producers in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu for large scale manufacturing. The tiles are produced at Rs 190 per square of tile used. Meanwhile, conventional tiles cost between Rs 50 to Rs 1,000.
The two series that Carbon Craft has released are the IdenTile series (standard range) and the IndusTile series (premium range). In the year 2020, the team aims to utilise one tonne of black carbon particles removed from the atmosphere.
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Edited by Javed Gaihlot
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