Courtesy of The Lemelson Foundation
READ MORE ABOUT:
Planet Green and the Lemelson Foundation of Oregon are proud to present to you a series of posts dedicated to the talented youth of today. The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) combined with the support of the Lemelson Foundation provides $1.5 million to student and faculty programs annually.
These programs in turn are able to take such funding and create working prototypes of their innovative ideas for further testing. In the end, many of these ideas are brought to corporate attention where they can be further funded, produced, and marketed to nations around the world.
Jerome Lemelson, the founder of Lemelson Foundation, was a gifted American inventor himself and would be happy to see some of the innovative, sustainable, and energy saving ideas that his program has funded over the years. To date, the foundation has donated approximately $140 million dollars to various projects around the world, many designed to reduce our carbon footprint on the world, such as Envirofit's two-stroke retrofit for foreign motorcycle taxis. This invention will cut carbon emissions by as much as 3,000 tons per year.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the world-renowned research and educational institution, is one of the Lemelson Foundation's earliest partners. The Lemelson-MIT Program each year recognizes outstanding inventors with awards: the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability, and the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize.
The Lemelson Foundation funds many projects across the nation and Planet Green will be featuring some of the most interesting and significant prototypes that may someday have the ability to help foster a more sustainable planet. Here is a sampling of projects we will be covering in the series:
- The Coconuts (Baylor University): A project intended to identify "value-added" products that can be manufactured by coconuts, an abundant, renewable resource found in all coastal regions within twenty degrees of the equator. Recent work includes:
- Binderless particleboard.
- Automotive application for the use of coconut fiber as reinforcement in an engineering polymer.
- Demonstrating that 10% finely ground coconut shell can increase the strength and stiffness of engineering plastics by as much as 60-70%.
- Working on increasing the yield of charcoal from coconut shell by doing careful experiments in a new furnace.
- Virgin coconut oil and coconut cooking oil.
- GROW (Pratt Institute): Developed by the Pratt Institutes's Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology (SMIT) group, GROW is a hybrid solar/wind panel designed to resemble ivy vines. The team intends for GROW to be more aesthetically pleasing than traditional solar panels and wind turbines, and plans to target both commercial and residential markets in the developed world, as well as markets in the developing world.
- SolarShade (University of Notre Dame): An aftermarket window treatment solution that can selectively tint a window at the push of a button, the SolarShade is designed to fit into a pre-existing window track or frame, and has the potential to significantly cut energy costs in residences, commercial buildings, and even recreational vehicles.
- Developing Sustainable Off-Grid Energy Systems in Rural Mali (Iowa State University): Approximately 80% of the population of Mali, one of the poorest nations in the world, is engaged in subsistence-level farming or fishing. In the eight rural villages comprising the Nana Kenieba region, no resident has access to electricity or phone, and only about 3,500 residents have access to clean water; the average inhabitant earns approximately $1/day. The ISU team, in conjunction with NGO Medicine for Mali, has established lighting as a primary concern for the region, and has worked to design lighting solutions using photovoltaic cells and thermoelectric devices.
- Hydraulic Hybrid Retrofits for Developing Nations (Colorado State University): Because transportation accounts for a large portion of air pollution (which contributes to approximately 800,000 deaths per year, two-thirds of which are in developing Asian nations), the CSU team was motivated to develop, manufacture, and sell hydraulic retrofit kits for use in buses and trucks in the developing world. These kits will increase fuel efficiency (an economic incentive for consumers) while simultaneously reducing particulate emissions by as much as 50%.
- GlobalResolve (Arizona State University): According to the World Health Organization, "cooking and heating with solid fuels such as dung, wood, agricultural residues or coal is likely to be the largest source of indoor air pollution globally." The team, focused on rural areas in Ghana (where 96% of the population uses solid fuels), is developing a fermented, corn-based, gelled ethanol and a companion smokeless stove prototype using local resources in Ghana that can be fabricated, marketed and sold in nearby communities.
More Green Inventors:
You're Never Too Young to be a Green Inventor
Inventing New Uses for Coconut Shells (Baylor University)
Bringing Hydraulic Hybrid Retrofits to Developing Nations (Colorado State University)
Get to Know: SMIT, Solar Power Ivy
Can the Watercycle Help Africa Survive? (Washington State University)
Deciphering Good Products from Bad is a Phone Text Away with GoodGuide (Berkeley University)
-
- {}
