The technological sector is constantly striving to make our world an easier, interesting and more accessible place to live and work. We thought that we would have a quick round up of technology developments that are looking to help maintain and improve the environment around us.
Magnetic Soaps
This is being developed to help combat oil slicks such as the gulf stream disaster. In some respects this already exists as a detergent known as a surfactant which alters the surface tension between the water and the oil allowing the oil to either sink down or be washed away by tidal action. However, the detergent is not environmentally friendly so removing one pollutant just to replace it with another is somewhat counter productive.
This new development involves dissolving iron into inert surfactant products such as mouthwash and fabric conditioner. The resulting soap particles that were formed all had a metallic centre. This allows the soap to break surface tension of water with the help of a magnet and, I assume, work like a net to remove any pollutants. The video below highlights the basic idea behind the soap.
The soap could also be removed from the ocean with ease and is not itself a pollutant.
The Elimination Of Vampire Power Drain
Vampire power drain is a modern day phenomenon. People leave their various objects plugged in for so long that they go to standby and begin to lose power. The new chargers, known as green zero chargers, can tell when an appliance is plugged in, when it is charging and when it is fully charged. Once the appliance is fully charged the charger will automatically shut it off. Here is a brief explanation.
So this increases your appliances battery lifetime, saves energy and costs less than $30. That seems like a pretty good deal to me.
Seaweed As A Renewable Fuel
The problem that most people associate with bio fuels is the sheer size of land that they require to produce a decent yield. Researchers have developed a microbe that can extract seaweed’s major sugars and convert them into renewable fuels. As seaweed does not require fresh water or arable land and is environmentally friendly could this be the next major step towards making bio fuel the global choice? Although this idea has been around for a while now the recent developments mean that it is a much more tangible option than before, the video below shows an older idea for using seaweed as a fuel.
These are just some of the interesting technological developments that are going on in the environmental field; something to keep your eye on. As green energy becomes ever more important there are going to be some truly astounding developments.
Have you any green tech developments that you think people should know about? What do you think is going to be the next major breakthrough for environmental tech? Please leave your comments below.
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January 26, 2012
Tech & Gadgets