Category Archives: Products

Nanotech Product Recalled in Germany

Nanotech Product Recalled in Germany by Rick Weiss

At least 77 people reported severe respiratory problems over a one-week period at the end of March — including six who were hospitalized with pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs — after using a “Magic Nano” bathroom cleansing product, according to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin.

Symptoms generally cleared up within 18 hours, though some had persistent breathing problems for days.

On Nanotechnology in general:

Studies of health effects have just begun in several countries, and regulatory agencies are still formulating their stances, but hundreds of nano products are already for sale.

It was unclear yesterday what kind of nanomaterial is in the spray, or even whether the particles were to blame. Every case has involved the aerosol spray-can form (the product was previously available in a pump bottle, without complications). And the propellant used in the aerosol has long been used uneventfully in hair sprays and other products.

Cheap Drinking Water From Seawater

Image of process to get cheap drinking water from seawater

New membrane technology offers cheap drinking water from seawater

The consumption of drinking water is still increasing, while the availability of drinking water decreases. About 1 billion people in the world have no access to enough clean drinking water, while 70% of the Earth is covered with water.
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Other techniques to convert seawater into drinking water, like RO, MSF, or MED, use a lot of energy to vaporize the water or push the water through a membrane under high pressure. Memstill uses cheap waste-energy, which cuts down the energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The cost of desalination of one cubic meter water with Memstill could be under $0.50, where other distillation techniques cost about 1 dollar for the same amount of water.

State-of-the-art desalination technology – more information on the memstill web site.

Robot Dreams

RAYERD-X robot

Video podcast of amazing robot:

One of the most surprising robots that appeared at the 9th Robo-One competition held here in Tokyo on March 18-19th, 2006, was RAYERED-X developed by Asurada. Its unique design allows it to reconfigure and transform itself into some amazing shapes. At first it looks like a short tower, then becomes a carousel, then a walking spider, then into a tall biped battle robot.

All sorts of robot news via the Robot Dreams blog, including RAYERD-X – The Magical Robot:

The robot really surprised the crowds, but may have puzzled the panel of judges to some extent. It’s hard to make a direct comparison between RAYERD-X and the more conventional robot designs. Nevertheless, it did capture the 24th position during the initial Demonstration phase of the Robo-One 9 competition and was awarded the Sunrise Special Prize.

RAYERD-X web site (Japanese).

Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge

Shift Bicycle photo

The History Channel and Invent Now, announced the 25 semi-finalists of the Modern Marvels Invent
Now Challenge, a national competition that provides an opportunity for independent inventors to be recognized and to influence the ever-changing face of invention.

The semi-finalists, who hail from 17 states across the U.S. and range in age from 19 to 80, were chosen from nearly 4,300 submissions entered, a number that confirms that the inventive spirit in America is alive
and well. This spring, the Challenge will ultimately name the invention of one of these 25 semi-finalists as the 2006 Modern Marvel of the Year during Modern Marvels: Great Inventions Week on The History Channel May 24-27th.

Innvetions include:

Matthew C. Grossman, Student, Austin, TX – Shift Bicycle (shown in photo): This bicycle is intended to help small children learn to balance on their own without the crutch of training wheels and the worry of skinned knees. The bicycle features two rear wheels that are spread apart at slow speeds to provide critical stability, and as the rider gains speed, the two rear wheels merge together to act as one wheel until the rider reduces speed and consequently returns the bicycle to the two wheel configuration. More information on the bike: new bike design for toddlers wins international competition

Russell D. Keller, Truck Driver, Oklahoma, OK – Drag Vent: An air diversion device captures a flow of air from above a roadway vehicle and forcibly diverts the captured air to the center of the low pressure area at the rear of the vehicle, thus reducing the amount of drag force applied to the vehicle and increasing the vehicles efficiency of operation.

Randal J. Kwapis, Computer Engineer, New Boston, MI – Typhoon: The Typhoon is an everyday manual wheelchair that utilizes shock-absorbing technology to make the chair easier to propel over rough terrain like grass and gravel.

Find more information on the semi-finalists and the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge

via Make

Smokeless Stove Uses 80% Less Fuel

Philips Smokeless Stove Uses 80% Less Fuel, Saves Lives

300 million families in the world’s poorest regions burn wood for cooking, and smoke and toxic emissions kill 1.6 million people per year.

That claim in the article is disputed by a comment on the web site. The difficulty of drawing direct causation for many medical problems makes such claims difficult to prove. A scientific paper explores the issue:

Chronic pulmonary disease in rural women exposed to biomass fumes

There is little question finding engineering solutions that serve to reduce health risks are often much better than trying to deal with the health consequences after people are sick. So providing safe drinking water, for example, will do more for health than increase spending on medical care to treat those who get sick.

Additionally the opportunities to save lives and improve health in the world often do not require cutting edge science. It is often a matter of engineering effective solutions for hundreds of millions and billions of people living without what those in the wealthy take for granted (Water and Electricity for All – Solar Powered Hearing Aid – Appropriate Technology).

Engineer Revolutionizing Icemakers

Dartmouth engineer revolutionizing the icemaker business

Technology developed at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering is about to revolutionize the $1 billion icemaker business. The invention is called pulse electro-thermal de-icing (PETD).

PETD inventor, Victor Petrenko, professor of engineering at Dartmouth states: “In fact, we can safely say that this technology can increase an icemaker’s production capacity by 70 percent while decreasing its energy consumption by up to 30 percent.”

Petrenko’s invention could ultimately transform the entire $40 billion refrigeration-air conditioning industry which, according to Petrenko, has struggled with the challenge of keeping cold evaporator coils free of frost and ice. Dartmouth’s PETD technology has proven its ability to de-ice these coils in seconds using a fraction of the energy required by conventional coil defrosters.

“In addition to this,” says Petrenko, “there are many other equally exciting applications for PETD in the works, such as for de-icing buildings and bridges, car windshields, airplanes, windmills and ships, and power lines.”

10 Things That Will Change The Way We Live

Forbes offers a list of 10 Things That Will Change The Way We Live. Of the items 9 of 10 seem directly related to science and engineering, such as: Fuel Cells, Gene Therapy, WiMAX. The only one that doesn’t seem directly related to science and engineering is $200 a barrel oil. But even there the effect of such an future would largely depend on science and engineering solutions that would be created in such a future.

Water and Electricity for All

Segway Creator Unveils His Next Act

Water and Electricity may not seem like something to wish for if you are reading this post. However for over 1 billion people that do without both it is.

Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, is puzzling over a new equation these days. An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world don’t have access to clean drinking water, and an estimated 1.6 billion don’t have electricity. Those figures add up to a big problem for the world and an equally big opportunity for entrepreneurs.

To solve the problem, he’s invented two devices, each about the size of a washing machine that can provide much-needed power and clean water in rural villages.

“Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water,” says Kamen. “The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don’t care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns.”
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Kamen’s goal is to produce machines that cost $1,000 to $2,000 each. That’s a far cry from the $100,000 that each hand-machined prototype cost to build.

Quadir is going to try and see if the machines can be produced economically by a factory in Bangladesh. If the numbers work out, not only does he think that distributing them in a decentralized fashion will be good business — he also thinks it will be good public policy. Instead of putting up a 500-megawatt power plant in a developing country, he argues, it would be much better to place 500,000 one-kilowatt power plants in villages all over the place, because then you would create 500,000 entrepreneurs.

More products from his company, Deka Research & Development Corp, including: Hydroflexâ„¢ Irrigation Pump, IBOTâ„¢ Mobility System and Intravascular Stent.

Dean Kamen understands what engineering can do. “Today, almost 200 engineers, technicians, and machinists work in our electronics and software engineering labs, machine shop, and on CAD stations.”

DEKA’s mission, first and foremost, is to foster innovation. It is a company where the questioning of conventional thinking is encouraged and practiced by everyone—engineers and non-engineers alike—because open minds are more likely to arrive at workable solutions. This has been our formula for success since we began, and it will continue to drive our success in the future.

Dean Kamen founded For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough by Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News:

The plastic material uses nanotechnology and contains the first solar cells able to harness the sun’s invisible, infrared rays. The breakthrough has led theorists to predict that plastic solar cells could one day become five times more efficient than current solar cell technology.
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At a current cost of 25 to 50 cents per kilowatt-hour, solar power is significantly more expensive than conventional electrical power for residences. Average U.S. residential power prices are less than ten cents per kilowatt-hour, according to experts.

But that could change with the new material.

“Flexible, roller-processed solar cells have the potential to turn the sun’s power into a clean, green, convenient source of energy,” said John Wolfe, a nanotechnology venture capital investor at Lux Capital in New York City.

Concentrating Solar Collector wins UW-Madison Engineering Innovation Award

Solar Collector

An inexpensive, modular solar-energy technology that could be used to heat water and generate electricity (see photo) won $12,500 and took first place in both the Schoofs Prize for Creativity and Tong Prototype Prize competitions, held Feb. 9 and 10 during Innovation Days on the UW-Madison College of Engineering campus.

In a package about the size of a small computer desk, the winning system uses a flat Fresnel lens to collect the sun’s energy and focus it onto a copper block. Then a unique spray system removes the energy from the copper block and converts it into steam, says inventor Angie Franzke, an engineering mechanics and astronautics senior from Omro, Wisconsin. The steam either heats water for household use or powers a turbine to generate electricity.

Other 2006 Schoofs Prize for Creativity winners include:

* Second place and $7,000 — William Gregory Knowles, for the OmniPresent Community-Based Response Network, a personal, business or industrial security system that draws on networked users and devices to more efficiently verify burglar alarms, fire alarms or medical emergencies.
* Third place and $4,000 — Garret Fitzpatrick, Jon Oiler, Angie Franzke, Peter Kohlhepp and Greg Hoell for the Self-Leveling Wheelchair Tray, a stowable working surface for wheelchairs that self-levels, even when the wheelchair is tilted or reclined up to a 45-degree angle.