Artist Helmut Smits has developed a “distilling installation” that converts the popular beverage Coca Cola into clean drinking water.
To create the distillation system ‘The Real Thing’, which made its debut during Dutch Design Week recently, Smits worked with University of Amsterdam masters student Martien Würdemann and the school’s Synthetic Organic Chemistry Group.
The idea behind Smits’ system is simple—as a bottle of Cola Cola boils, the water vapor that is produced is funneled into a separate glass. Minerals are then added to the glass to make the water safe for consumption.
“I’m not planning on turning all the Coke in the world back into water… I just want people to laugh and then hopefully think about the sh*t that they consume,” said Smits in an interview with Dezeen.
What do you think of Smits’ idea?
Take a look at his distillation system below.
[via Dezeen, images by Ronald Smits via Helmut Smits]