Concept bike embodies 'clean as you go' policy

A new award-winning concept bike cleans the surrounding air for its rider and his or her fellow citizens

Aside from boosting their local economy, raising property prices and enhancing the public image of their surroundings, cyclists could soon add another claim to the already impressive list of benefits their activity has not just on themselves, but on the places and people around them.

A new concept bike from Thailand, named the Air-Purifier Bike (APB) capitalises on existing technology to purify the air the rider moves through, expelling cleansed, oxygen-enriched air towards the rider.

Cycling, which is carbon neutral and the most energy efficient method of personal transport, must be incentivised, encouraged and invested in by governments and authorities. If in cycling, people were actually cleaning the streets, it would surely have to be recognised as an out-and-out public service.

Lightfog Creative and Design Company claims its ‘photosynthesis system’ uses a chemical reaction between elements in the bicycle’s lithium-ion battery, water and carbon dioxide in the surrounding air, to produce oxygen. At the same time, its filter is designed to trap the dangerous dust and particulate air pollution that is the “single most serious preventable cause of heart attack” in the general public, according to The Lancet.

The concept – which remains unproven until a planned prototype is completed – has won a Red Dot Design award. There have been numerous designs for road surfaces and building materials that absorb harmful pollution, but this is the first example of bringing the idea to a bicycle - with its clear advantage for the cyclist riding amongst polluting traffic.

The project is timely, coming as it does in the week that venerable medical journal The Lancet criticised legal EU ‘safe levels’ of air pollution (which most major cities routinely break anyway) are not low enough to combat thousands of preventable death due to respiratory problems. Bangkok, where the APB's creators are based based suffers air pollution twice the 'safe' limit.