Anirudh Sharma: Air-Ink

Anirudh Sharma, co-founder of Graviky Labs and the mind behind Air Ink, is one of those rare innovators who turned a dire environmental problem into an artistic, circular solution. While studying at the MIT Media Lab, Anirudh was struck by the pollution in the air and observed how particulate matter from vehicle exhausts, chimneys, and diesel generators permeated city life. He began to see pollution as a resource and raw material for Air Ink.

The team developed KAALINK, a cylindrical device that can be retrofitted onto exhaust pipes or chimneys to capture particulate matter (soot) before it enters the air.

Air Ink is the world’s first ink made from carbon emissions. This Bangalore-born innovation captures soot from car exhausts and upcycles it into rich, velvety black ink. Using KAALINK, attached directly to vehicle exhausts, the system collects soot particles, which are then purified and processed into a usable ink medium. 

The final product is pens, markers, and screen-printing materials that do much more than write. It prevents pollution from entering the air we breathe. Each 30ml Air Ink pen offsets around 45 minutes of car pollution. Graviky collaborates with artists around the world, turning this ink into art.

The purified carbon is then processed into usable pigments and inks, the flagship product being Air Ink. Through this process, Graviky aims to create black ink that does not rely on burning fossil fuels but instead uses pollution that would otherwise harm human health.

One notable collaboration was with Tiger Beer and artists in Hong Kong, where hours of captured air pollution turned into ink for art, bringing walls to life while raising awareness of air quality issues.

In recognition of its novelty and impact, Anirudh has presented a TED Talk on how he turned pollution into ink. He is also recognized as a speaker and innovator in deep-tech and social entrepreneurship circles.

Some of the challenges he and his team face include making the technology cost-effective enough for widespread adoption, scaling up purification processes, and integrating with industrial supply chains. They have expressed their intent to move toward open-sourcing certain aspects of their technology, with the goal of making the methods accessible globally.

They are also expanding their product range from marker and screen-printing inks to industrial inks and are exploring partnerships in fashion, packaging, and material design.

What Graviky Labs has achieved with Air Ink is a technical marvel, a solution born in an era when pollution is often reduced to numbers on charts or distant policy debates. Air Ink brings pollution closer to our fingertips, turning the abstract into the tangible. And yet, this is only the beginning. It opens up an entirely new frontier in circular design thinking.

The ink on a poster, the print on a garment, the sketch on a wall are clever ways to convert pollution into purpose. Some of the most urgent climate solutions may not come from sweeping policies or industrial overhauls. Sometimes they emerge from the smallest particles and from what we choose to create with them.