NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

LED Lamp Could Be Powered By Your Tears

The wilderness got you crying in your tent? No problem! This month, a Japanese company is coming out with an LED lantern that runs on saltwater.

With the catchy name "GH-LED10WBW," this portable light runs with as little as 350 milliliters of saline -- roughly a cup and a half, according to Tech-On writers Masaru Yoshida and Nikkei Monozukuri. OK, granted, that's an insane amount of crying, but a few drips could keep the light on slightly longer.

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The light works because saltwater acts like an electrolyte between magnesium and carbon rods inside the device, producing electricity, Gizmodo's Andrew Liszewski explained. The salty setup will be good for eight hours before requiring more saline. It could also hook into a USB cable and power small devices.

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The lantern will be released mid-month by the Japanese company Green House Co., Ltd., an IT manufacturer that usually produces peripherals like memory cards and cables. This new LED lantern fits with the company's green focus on reducing air pollution, waste, wastewater and lessening their products' potential impacts on environment.

Much though I enjoy the thought of contact lens rinse doing double-duty in the mountains, the lamp still requires some water mixed with a set amount of salt in a separate bag. The magnesium rod also needs replacing after up to 120 hours. At that rate, a rechargeable battery might just be easier. Saltwater and electronics don't always play well together, either.

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This lantern strikes me as more of a novelty. If things really get desperate out on the trail, my keychain has a powerful little LED that still works after all these years.

Photo: This LED light can generate electricity from saltwater. Credit: Green House Co., Ltd. via Tech-On

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Power Cell Gets A Charge From Pressure

Energy from motion is all around us -- in the tides, in wind, when we walk, when we drive and even the vibrations from ambient sounds. A research team at Georgia Tech has taken a step towards making that energy useful.

A group led by materials science professor Zhong Lin Wang has built a power cell that recharges when it's compressed or deformed. Current versions are small, producing only a few hundred millivolts, but a larger one could supplement or even a replace batteries in electronic devices.

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The power cell is made of a cathode and anode. The cathode is lithium-cobalt-oxide (LiCoO2) and the anode is titanium dioxide (TiO2). The anode is made up of tiny nanometer-sized tubes grown on a titanium film. The anode and cathode are separated by a membrane made from polyvinylidene fluoride film, also known as PVDF.

PVDF is a piezoelectric material, the kind that generates a charge whenever it is put under a mechanical strain such as compression, stretching or bending. The charge generated by the stress drives lithium ions from the cathode to the anode. The lithium ions form lithium-titanium oxide, and store the energy. Release the stress and the electric field disappears -- but the lithium ions stay in the anode.

Connecting an electrical circuit to the cathode and anode causes the lithium ions to flow back to the cathode until the cycle is repeated.

Pressing on the cell more than two times per second produced up to 395 millivolts in four minutes. That's close to the frequency at which human steps hit the ground during a walk.

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The device was then discharged with a current of one milliamp for about two minutes. Wang's team estimated the power cell held about 0.036 milliamp-hours. That's small -- a typical lithium-ion battery holds four orders of magnitude more. But it shows that this kind of technology works. The big barrier to more efficiency is the metal casing of the cell, because it doesn't transmit all the mechanical energy from pressing on it.

The research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has a real interest in powering mobile devices for the military without the need for generators to charge them.

Credit: Gary Meek / Georgia Tech

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Internet My Ass! Donkey-Mounted Wi-Fi

The one thing you don’t expect to find at a theme park dedicated to recreating life in the First and Second centuries is Wi-Fi. However, Kfar Kedem, or Village of Yore, theme park in Israel, is doing just that. The theme park not only reenacts life in Galilee during the Biblical area, it also provides wireless Internet on a very unique platform: a donkey.

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According to Fast Company, this is one of the first times any business has adopted animal-mounted wireless as part of their business strategy. The idea behind the ass-mounted wireless internet was for mobile device-inclined foreign tourists to have a way to share their experience by uploading photos or tweeting about their visit to the park. Five of the 30 donkeys in the village have wireless routers attached to them and other Wi-Fi-friendly mounts are coming. So if you ever visit this park, take advantage of the opportunity to finally tweet: “I’m at Kfar Kedem and my ass has Wi-Fi.”

via FastCompany

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Kfar Kedem

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Mirrored Troughs Could Power Remote Clinics

About 1.4 billion people in the world have absolutely no access to electricity at all and even more have extremely unreliable access. Additionally, there are some 30,000 clinics and 60,000 schools around the world that lack access to electricity.

A nonprofit start-up company, called Solar Turbine Group or STG International, run by MIT engineering PhD candidate Matthew Orosz and his colleagues has developed an alternative: a heat-powered generator that gets its energy from the sun. It's a system that uses mirrored parabolic troughs (see photo above) to capture sunlight and concentrate it on pipes at the center of the troughs. Fluid running through the pipes get heated to 320 degrees Fahrenheit.

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The heated fluid is pumped into a chamber where it expands and drives a generator that produces electricity. The hot fluid can also be used to heat water, which means the extra step of an electric heater isn't necessary. After the heat from the fluid is exhausted, the cooled fluid condenses and gets recirculated to the pipes in the trough to be heated by the sun again.

The principle behind this system is actually quite old -- it was discovered in the 19th century. But only recently have engineers looked at using the sun to power it.

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The system is being tested in Lesotho, in southern Africa. Hot water is a big issue there, because in winter it gets quite cold. Without hot water, health care workers are unwilling to wash their hands.

Matthew Orosz, one of the founders, said the idea for the system came when he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, and that’s where the company plans to have five fully operational systems in place for field-testing at remote health clinics. It will be, he said, a good alternative for such clinics which are too far away from cities to get reliable fuel or where there isn’t enough sunlight to power solar panels.

The research will published in an ASME Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power.

Image: STG International

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Island Nation First at Fully Solar: DNews Nugget

Island Nation First at Fully Solar: The island nation of Tokelau, a non-self-governing territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific, is making history by becoming the first inhabited place on Earth to completely rely on solar for energy. The islands will receive a total of 4,000 solar panels, 392 solar inverters and 1,344 batteries. Until now, the three coral atolls -- Atafu, Nukunonu, and Fakaofo -- that make up the nation have run on diesel fuel, but with funding from New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the islands will be making the switch. The roughly 1,400 residents are happy to make the switch away from diesel to an energy solution that helps them preserve their island habitat. via Dvice

 

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Environmental Efforts Power the Olympics

We’re seeing a lot of gold at this year’s Olympics, but behind the scenes, it’s all green. From environmentally responsible energy to recyclable venues, the London 2012 Olympics could be one of the most eco-friendly games yet. Two areas stand out when talking about sustainability and the Olympics, transportation and architecture, and here’s a few ways London is keeping them green:

Transportation

BMW is providing two-hundred zero-emission electric cars comprised of 160 ActiveE First Drive and 40 Mini Cooper Mini Es (right). GE has placed 120 of their DuraStation EV chargers throughout the Olympic Village to keep the cars juiced and ready to go.

An even cuter “mini-er” Mini Cooper (right) is being used to transport athletic gear. According to Edmunds Inside Line, the radio-controlled electric vehicles are small enough to carry equipment like a single discus or two javelins, which can be accessed through a sunroof. Charging up in about 80 minutes, the cars can carry up to 18 pounds and have a range of around 109 yards.

Architecture

All of the structures built for the London 2012 Olympics were done so with environmental sustainability and energy consumption in mind. Both the Velodrome (above), home of indoor cycling, and the Copperbox, venue for handball and badminton, collect rainwater from their sloped roofs for indoor plumbing usage, which cuts water consumption by 40 percent annually. Using a natural ventilation system, outdoor air is used to keep the more than 6,000 visitors to the Velodrome cool -- no A/C needed.

Two buildings in Olympic Park won’t last long after the closing ceremonies -- and that’s ok. The Water Polo Arena (right) and the Basketball arena will be torn down immediately after the Olympics are over. Both structures were built with PVC fabric that’s highly recyclable and will be reused for other construction projects. The wings of the exterior of the Aquatic Center will also be removed and the main structure will be used for other London community events. 

So, whether you’re watching at home or from the stands, remember that not only are these games making athletic history, they are also making environmental history. 

Credits: Edmund Sumner/View/Corbis (top); BMW North America (middle); London 2012 (bottom)

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Vertical Wind Turbines Go Offshore

Wind turbines tend to look like windmills or giant propellers, and the design does in fact borrow from that. But that isn't the only design that's ever been tried.

At Sandia National Laboratories wind energy experts are looking at vertical axis wind turbines, (called VAWTs). VAWTs have a couple of advantages over traditional horizontal-axis designs, one of which is that the drive train mechanism is close to the ground and thus easier to maintain. They also aren't as complicated and have a lower center of gravity. If a VAWT system could be made to work, then it might make wind power cheaper.

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VAWTs are also simpler in one respect: they need not face the wind, since the wind will turn them from any direction. That means there are fewer moving parts and less maintenance -- an important consideration when building an offshore wind farm.

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So why aren't they used more often? VAWT designs generate different loads on their drive trains. That is, a traditional wind turbine has blades that face the wind at a certain angle. The angle of those blades can be changed to account for different wind speeds, which keeps them moving at a relatively constant rate, reducing the wear and tear on the drive mechanism.

A VAWT 's blades catch the wind and as they turn, come back around and have to face the wind again. That means that there's a bumpiness to the torque they produce – the turbine moves fast, then slows down, then speeds up again, over and over. (In a similar way, it's a lot more taxing on your car's engine to stop, start, and rev the engine than it is to drive smoothly).

Another big challenge is designing a VAWT blade that is very large. A horizontal axis turbine has to be on the order of 100 yards across to generate megawatt-scale power. VAWTs have to be even bigger, on the order of 300 yards long. But building a gracefully curved, light blade that big -- and guaranteeing its strength -- is sometimes hard to do.

But the last VAWTs were built in the 1980s, and since then a lot of expertise has been developed in the design and manufacture of turbine blades, to say nothing of the advances in materials since then. So the Sandia team thinks there's a lot to be mined there. Over the next two years Sandia researchers will be looking at how to improve on the old designs, and see which ones are most promising.

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Sandia Labs isn't the only group looking at VAWT designs. The California Institute of Technology has also been researching them. A Swedish company called Ehmberg Solutions developed the SeaTwirl, which is specifically designed for use offshore and incorporates seawater into the workings of the turbine.

Credits: Sandia National Laboratories / Randy Montoya

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Garbage Drone Could Clean Up Oceans

From solar-powered underwater research bots to ones that tweet about California water quality, robots are becoming water-friendly devices. The Marine Drone is the latest among these, designed to search and destroy garbage in the ocean.

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The project was spearheaded by Elie Ahovi, an industrial design student at French International School of Design. After seeing the huge amounts of junk floating in areas like the Great Pacific Garbage Patches, Ahovi and some fellow students decided to create a solution. The Marine Drone works autonomously to suck garbage into a built-in net. When the net is full, the drone is programmed to head back to its docking station and be cleaned out by a crew. Water-proof batteries power the silent electric motor, and a sonic emitter produces a signals designed to keep fish and other animals away from the net. It's unclear how effective this would be and whether it will create one form of pollution (noise) in order to clean up the plastic kind.

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A few questions come up when considering this project, like: Where does the ocean garbage go once it's been collected at the docking station? Could this be implemented in other bodies of water, such as lakes and rivers? Ahovi responded to these questions by saying that garbage collected is recycled on land, and that the current design is too large to accomodate smaller bodies of water. If the design team can turn the project into an actual working product, we could have a solution to the overwhelming amounts of waste in the ocean.

via EarthTechling

Credit: Elie Ahovi 

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'Smart Village' Sets Example for Poverty Relief

A model village in Mayalsia is changing the way communities tackle poverty. Rimbunan Kaseh, a rural village sitting on 30 acres of land near Kuala Lumpur, was built to serve as an example of how to address rural poverty issues by promoting environmental sustainability with technology. The project was detailed at this year's Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council meeting in San Jose, Calif. The GSIAC is made up of international leaders from several countries to find ways to build sustainability and a stronger economy for the Asian country.

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The community offers education, training and recreational facilities, as well as 100 affordable post- consumer material built homes, selling from $16,000 to $20,000. A closed-loop agriculture system is a big part of the community, providing food and income for its residents. ‘Closed loop’ means that everything in the community is inter-connected, for example: An aqua-culture system raises fish for a protein-rich food supply, waste from the fishtanks is then used to irrigate plants to grow fresh produce. The produce is grown in hydroponic pots that can detect soil moisture, which makes it easer to water plants accurately without wasting water. All of these processes come together to provide reliable food supply and augment resident’s income by $400 to $650 a month. Sustainability is also supported with the communities solar power capabilities, biomass energy and mini-hydro electricity.

Ribunan Kaseh offers everything typical communities do like schools, playgrounds and places of worship, with a high-tech twist. Educational facilities are equipped with 4G Internet service that supports e-learning and e-health services. Ellis Rubenstein, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences, said at the GSIAC meeting, “Integrated smart communities could transform services available to Malaysia's citizenry while creating thousands of jobs, complementing GSIAC's unprecedented alliance to improve education in that country at every level from cradle to career.”

More “smart villages” are planned for the area, with up to 12 sites in the near future. While it’s centralized to Malaysia for now, this example could set a new precedent in creating change for people experiencing poverty all over the world.

Credit: MiGHT

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Solar Charger Built For Occupiers

While not officially a part of the New York City Occupy protests, Tommy Mitchell did feel the need to contribute when he saw protestors charging their phones at a gas-guzzling hot dog vendor’s generator. Mitchell built a solar-powered cellphone charging station that can accommodate up to eight phones at a time.

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He told the New York Times he thought charging that way was “awful” and decided to invent something that would use natural energy in a public space without electrical outlets. After doing some research and buying parts on Amazon, Mitchell brought his station to the park and offered it up to Occupiers for free. Other stations in the area rely on electricity and charge a fee for use. He hopes that eventually, park officials will take notice and offer to buy or lease his invention for public use.

via New York Times Green Blog

Photo: The materials Mitchell used to build the charger, not the final product. Credit: Tommy Mitchell 

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