Table of Contents
23. A Waterless washing machine
Image © Paul David Drabble www.pauldaviddrabble.co.uk
A waterless washing machine is one of the hot new products that could help to cut household bills by almost a third. This new technology was developed by Xeros Ltd, and it uses small reusable nylon beads to absorb stains.
The process of washing clothes using this machine would use about 90% less water than a typical machine, needing probably about a cup of water for each wash. the machine would be as effective as normal machines are and could be used to remove a variety of stains such as ink, mud, and wine.
The best part of this new development is that clothes that go through this cycle would come out nearly dry which would reduce the need to have a dryer as well.
22. ICE ENERGY ICE Energy
Image: www.utilitydive.com
Air conditioning can be a huge drain on electricity supplies. Enter Ice Energy’s Ice Bear, which integrates with a standard AC unit. The water in the Ice Bear is frozen overnight when temperatures are lower and electricity, in many countries, is cheaper, and the ice then cools the AC unit’s refrigerant during the day. This results in a 30 per cent saving in energy use. An AC unit should last 15 years, by which time the Ice Bear will have paid for itself several times.
21. Deep Green
Image: www.ramboll.com
A turbine known as Deep Green was invented and created by Minesto, which is a privately-owned company by Sweden and the UK. Deep Green is located 100 meters above sea bottom. Its dimensions are a total wingspan of 12 meters and one turbine measures one meter diameter. The kit is made up of a wing along with a rudder designed to turn the turbine to capture the most amount of energy created by underwater tides.
Because the density of seawater is 800 times air, underwater turbines can create up to 800 times more power than turbines located in the sky. Even in still waters, Deep Green can generate up to 500 kW of electricity. This kite currently travels in a figure 8 pattern and travels 10 times more rapidly than the water currents.
Minesto believes that their design will increase the demand for tidal power sources by 80% in the coming months. A scale model is in production and will be released next year located off Northern Ireland’s coast.
20. 3D Printers Printing Thin Solar Cells and Solar Panels
Image: blog.solargardens.org
3D Printers have entered the market with a boom. They can print a crazy number of things but when it comes to the environment and saving the planet they come in as a surprising option.
19. Heating without gas or energy
Image: thetechjournal.com
British Journalist Dylan Winter designed a system to heat a room without using electricity or gas. This system is designed to use four candles, two jars of clay, and a metal try.
18. Led Light
In recent years light bulbs have changed to the better. They have through the years not been very environmentally friendly. Compact fluorescent lamps were introduced as highly efficient alternatives to traditional bulbs before 100, 75, 60 and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs are phased out of production by 2014. The revolution are LED lights as they can last upwards of 20 years and use minimal energy.
17. Frictionless Wind Turbines
Image: www.solar.excluss.com
Solving the problem with wind turbines which is friction which causes them to hinder the turning, which causes less energy produced. Chinese scientist have solved the problem with a new type of wind turbines that are frictionless using magnetic levitation wind turbines.
16. Solar Powered Cellphones
Image: www.gadgetlite.com
Imagine if you could charge your cell phone using sun energy where two hours of sunlight a day would be enough. What is better is that you would not have to charge it as the cover would be made from the material, continuously running from the sun energy.
15. Solarball – Water purifier which can help impoverished regions that don’t have access to clean drinking water.
Image: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/invention-uses-sunlight-to-produce-clean-water/
The device, which takes advantage of the sun’s natural purifying abilities, can produce up to three liters of clean water a day. The device absorbs heat from sunlight, with the result that the dirty water inside the ball to evaporate. During the evaporation process, contaminants are removed from the water, leaving behind condensation that can be collected and stored for drinking.
14. Drought- and heat-resistant crops
Image: www.nytimes.com
Heat is one of the biggest enemies of crops but now researchers are looking into selective breeding methods to adapt crops to soring heat which would solve countless problems related to starvation in the world.
13. Drinkable sea water
In 1920 a twenty year old girl, Maria Telkes, invented a system of solar distillation that would make sea water drinkable. The plan was to have the sun take care of water purification. Although the plan never became reality, now 95 years later a Italian graduate student Gabriele Diamanti has patented a similar system called solar desalination. A device that is able to generate about 5 liters of fresh water per day, called Eliodomestico and filters water through a tube using solar energy.
12. Turning banana peels into plastic
Image: thekidshouldseethis.com
A 16-year old from Istanbul called Elif Beligin won the 2013 Science in Action award for a beautiful idea: a chemical process that turns banana peels into a resistant bio plastic which may help reduce dependence on oil. An inspiration to people of all ages, Elif thought about the fat contained in the banana peel and how it protected the fruit by being both flexible and durable.
11. White Goat Machines
Image: www.dvice.com
This machine, much like its name suggests, is probably one of the strangest machines to exist today. However, this machine is an amazing tool that turns shredded paper into toilet paper.
While the idea behind developing the white boat machine sounds strange, each person uses approximately 39 pounds of toilet paper each year, which is roughly the equivalent of a third of a tree. Through this machine is only available for sale in Japan, it only takes 40 sheets of paper to create a fresh roll of toilet paper in just 30 minutes and costs only 12 cents a roll.
10. Lilypads
Image: www.gizmag.com
Every year, the planet is experiencing warming, the glaciers are melting, and sea levels are continuing to rise. This means that people who live in low-lying areas around the world will be displaced from their homes sometime in the next century.
One forward-thinking architect by the name Vincent Callebaut designed a product he calls Lilypads. These are self-sufficient floating cities that can each accommodate up to 50,000 people. He was inspired by Victorian water lilies and designed the cities to be made of polyester fibers.
9. Carbon-sucking nanotubes
Image: mitei.mit.edu
Nanotubes are huge area of development for their wide range of uses, and will play a large part in energy production in upcoming years. A company called Porifera has recently developed a novel method of using nanotechnology to isolate carbon.
7. The Electric Car is finally a viable option for the common household around the world.
Image: www.treehugger.com
The best models include Testla Model S which as a range of about 275 miles on one charge and starts at $ 50,000. We then have various models that run on electricity the first 50 miles.
6. Cold fusion
Image: www.wired.co.uk
A technology introduced in the 70s then debunked as a myth, again being taken up as a source of energy that could replace coal, oil, and gasoline as a cheap, clean and safe energy source.
5. Clean fresh water technology – low cost water purification around the corner!
Image: http://www.theguardian.com/
They say water will be the oil of the future, so scarce that nations will go to war over it. Millions of people die each year because they do not have access to clean water.
This is hopefully about to change with Nanotechnology in filtration which removes microbes, bacteria and other matter from water using composite nanoparticles which removes silver ions that destroy contaminants.
4. Phone Made From Blocks
There are millions of phones thrown away each year because one of endless components is broken! Plastic, battery and other elements that are making mobile phones one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world.
A solution to this is phones made from block. So when your run out of storage, or break a part of your phone you do not need to buy a new phone, you just add a new block to the phone. This is the concept of eco-friendly smartphones.
3. 14,000 Mile-an-Hour Vacuum Tube Railroad
Image: gizmodo.com
A train in a tube. What more does one need to say? Well, it is called a “hyperloop” and the whole plan is open source. It has the potential to travel 14,000 mile-an-hour, and the best part is that it would costa friction of the cost of the current rail-way system. It would also not be run on gasoline, oil, or coals so the cost of building and running the hyperloop would be way less than normal trains. Can you also imagine the time it would save people travelling between places?
2. Floating Booms and Processing Platforms Designed to ‘suck’ in Floating Plastic Rubbish
Image: vr-zone.com
A 19-year old engineering student has invented booms that are energy efficient and will float around the world oceans and clean them from all plastic floating around, in just 5 years!
1. Solan Panels – Road Solar Panels
Image: http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml
Solar panels are so awesome and despite the hype-e video, are something that can really change the world. Imagine, cities that produce electricity from using roads made from solar panel. This has the potential to change the world and make the world more green.
I highly recommend everyone that have not seen the video to do so right now, it is not only an awesome idea, the video is pretty good to.
