Sustainable Technologies

The current tomato peeling process is a water- and energy- intensive operation and results in a large amount of wastewater. Particularly, the wastewater from caustic peeling method using hot lye solution is high in salinity and organic load due to loss of tomato solid during peeling. It is reported that the water consumption for tomato processing in California alone is about 10.7 billion gallons per year, while expenses of wastewater management could be up to $8,000 per ton of total dissolved solids. Presently, tomato processors are under intense regulation and environmental pressure and are seeking alternatives to replace caustic ...

More >>

The world population every year continues to grow at an alarming rate and we are feeling the effects of it increasing more and more every day. More people means more housing, more cars, more energy, and more pollution. More energy and pollution are two that go together. The bioreactor air scrubber is here to counter act that. Bioreactors are not a new technology. Many people use them to cultivate algae for biofuel but my bioreactor aims to optimize the exchange of carbon dioxide into oxygen using algae and a new designed bio reactor. As a result is also optimizes ...

More >>

Spills of oil from drilling and transportation operations will continue to cause environmental degradation and economic losses.

Millions of tons (annually) of sustainable (U.S.A-available) resources can help reduce the impact of the environmental insult of uncontained oil. Poultry feathers are being incinerated or disposed into landfills instead of being used as a renewable resource. Feathers have been used in various applications, such as insulation or circuit boards.

Feathers, alone, can help contain oil spills by limiting the spread of the oil in water. The adsorbent quality of chicken feathers, and other poultry feathers, can contain oil, just as living ...

More >>

The key problem in the future is the supply of energy and its impact on our climate. One of the key factors in solving this problem is reducing demand for electricity. Smart grid technology has been invented to deal with reducing electric demand at key points by altering the consumption of major electrical appliances. The other big source of electric demand in the United States is air conditioning in the summer. The two ways to decrease electricity use in air conditioning are increased air conditioner efficiency and reducing thermal energy that enters the building.
I am proposing that ...

More >>

INTRODUCTION

Bio-refineries are analogous to petroleum refineries, which produce multiple fuels and products from crude petroleum. By producing multiple products, a bio-refinery takes advantage of the various elements in biomass and their components, maximizing their value.

For example, starch consumed during grain-based ethanol production concentrates protein and other nutrients, producing a high value animal feed as a co-product. This feed product—commonly referred to as Dried Distiller’s Grain with Solubles (DDGS)—can be used to directly replace a portion of grain in animal diets.

ADDING VALUE

DDGS has an extended shelf-life compatible with worldwide distribution. However, the small particle size needed for conventional drying ...

More >>

The SST is a simple, but highly accurate, tracking system to keep photovoltaic panels or other sun energy receivers oriented accurately to obtain highest possible receiver efficiency.

Description:
The SST simply consists of small photovoltaic panels, a shadow board, and small double pole-single throw relays to drive the receiver’s aiming motors. The solar panels need only be sized large enough to drive the aiming motors. Two of these photovoltaic panels are needed for each axis to be controlled. To accurately track the sun for all seasons, two axes, elevation and azimuth will need to be provided.
Each photovoltaic panel will be illuminated ...

More >>

There are three problems surrounding traditional agriculture:
1) It’s a direct contributor to obesity epidemic; children’s resistance to eating greens is a normal body response to flavorless produce.
2) Transportation from hundreds of miles away.
3) Low yields per unit of water and energy add to global starvation and wars.

To help remedy this we offer advanced do-it-yourself hydroponic container designs combined with efficient LED lighting as a possible solution for lack of produce flavor and low yield.
We are targeting the world’s 800 million part-time urban farmers looking to supplement income or simply ...

More >>

Buy and store energy at the cheapest rates, and use it at anytime.

The Problem:
Power companies often provide different rates based on time of day. Rates are often the lowest during the night and early morning. But this is not always convenient for most people, such as doing the laundry at 1AM. How to take advantage of this situation?

The Solution:
The FLIPS solution provides an energy storage device that collects and stores energy during the lowest rate periods of the day or week. That stored energy is then used by the household off-grid at any time during the day.

How It Works:
The ...

More >>

Autonomous Velocity Motors

One of the biggest problems with any device that needs an electric motor is the faster a motor turns and the more torque that is required, the more current and/or voltage is required to run it which limits the time a motor can run from a stored energy source like a battery. My motor modification enables a motor to run at variable speeds and produce a high torque while maintaining a fixed current and voltage.

By extending the time a motor can run from a battery will enable any device needing a motor to run with ...

More >>

The Pollution is the Solution

Many, if not most, of the worlds estuaries, bays,lakes,and rivers suffer from oxygen deficient eutrophic waters, as a direct result of anthropogenic phosphorous released into the water by agricultural fertilizer runoff.
Since about 1850 humans have ground up rock containing largely insoluble phosphorous and treated the ground rock with sulfuric acid to create all too abundant and very inexpensive phosphorous in soluble phosphoric acid form.
Cheap phosphorous fertilizers were seen as an advancement in agriculture.
Sadly, our ancestors placed too much soluble phosphorus (which is the limiting nutrient for algae blooms) into our waterways.

Algae can be harvested ...

More >>

Oceanic Thermal Energy Conversion system for Gulf Restoration Venture (OTEC-Gulf) is being created in this two-phase effort. In Phase I, we will conduct extensive, long-term testing of concepts over a two-year period in a one-tenth-scale prototype. In Phase II, deploy 100’s of 100-megawatt OTEC systems.
OTEC-Gulf will bring nutrient-rich cold water from the Gulf of Mexico depths causing a phytoplankton bloom, which will restore oxygen & aquatic life at surface AND over time sequester carbon to ocean depths. OTEC systems also remove warm water from ocean surface thereby reducing hurricane fuel source, which could reduce risk to properties at ...

More >>

My invention heats water by taking the kinetic energy from the wind using a modified Froude type dynamometer, which is coupled to a vertical axis cycloturbine style wind turbine.

The wind-turbine is a variation of prior cycloturbine types, since it uses a wind direction sensing vane to dynamically adjust blade pitch, to create a high soliditity rotor in the face of the wind, and little or no resistance down wind.

The main application I envision for my design is heating swimming pool water, owing to the considerable number of indoor pools in America, most of which are basic variants ...

More >>

Greenergy Fertilizer

In the United States, cities, municipalities, boroughs and counties together collect 65 million tons of yard waste and grass clippings every year (Source- Environmental Protection Agency). There is growing awareness about how this bio-degradable material overloads the landfills. However, the commonly accepted solution of composting this biomass wastes a large quantity of easily recoverable energy.
In composting, bacteria growing on biomass oxidize carbon to carbon dioxide (and evaporate moisture) thereby reducing its weight. This oxidation of biomass converts a large amount of energy to heat. Quantitatively speaking, composting of 65 million tons of biomass produces 22 Million ...

More >>

Modular HydroPower (MHP) for Developing Countries

This is a new generation of renewable energy systems for developing nations or in remote locations to provide hydrokinetic electrical power for health care, commerce, education and for domestic microenterprises. MHP units preassembled, readily transportable and include all equipment required to generate reliable electricity. The equipment is installed on an innovative pontoon barge that will hoist the turbine out of the water for inspection and servicing.

Hydrokinetic energy (moving water) holds tremendous power and has two major advantages over wind: it is 800 times more dense than air (much more energy per unit/volume) and ...

More >>

E-Path is a concept to facilitate electrification of the North American rail network while providing the right of way for the electrical transmission infrastructure needed to access the large amount of wind energy in the center of the continent. It then leverages the electrified rail network to provide an evolutionary path to fully autonomous intermodal rail service as well as a path to electrification/hybridization of commercial trucking. The intermodal carriages carry their own electric drive train that powers the rear set of tires. 4 deployable steel wheels carry the weight when on the rails. Initially the carriages would be ...

More >>

The New Hydrogen Motor
This idea of mine will help solve our addiction to oil.
Also this idea will benefit in our global financial recovery by
using only water as a fuel which is a never ending
Supply.
This idea isn’t novel it’s been around a long time but the way it is being
Presented can be drastically improved.
Today’s motors are, as we speak trying to be converted into hydrogen
burning motors and I’m sure that some are working or are helping in the
lowering of the consumption in gasoline ,but as you know the technology isn’t there yet.
It takes too much energy to create hydrogen for ...

More >>

Reducing dependency on carbon fuels is a major goal and concern for many. One way to do this is to increase gas mileage as well as reduce the use of combustion engines that also burn oil as well. When this is achieved the outcome would not only reduce our use of carbon fuels but lower consumer prices by Paying less for vehicle fuel, reduce the up and down price changes by an unstable industry. The device I propose would accomplish this with very little cost increase to the auto manufactures and consumers.
Let’s look at three types of ...

More >>

Recent scientific studies have verified that the surface tension and freezing point of water can be lowered by negative electrostatic charge.All metals , minerals, proteins and amino acids never go into solution; they are held in suspension as minute particles by negative electrostatic charge on colloids- a little understood application of Zeta Potential.This electrostatic charge determines the ability of water to carry these colloids in suspension without flocculation or sedimentation.
Further,negative electrostatic charged water is bacteria static as fungus, mold, mildew and bacteria must colonize to grow.High zeta potential stops colonization.
We have created a small,portable high voltage,low amperage ...

More >>

The Baumann Green Floor™ (BauGF™)

The proprietary Baumann Green Floor™ (BauGF™) is designed to take advantage of what is called the “thermal flywheel effect of concrete.”

Concrete has the ability to efficiently store thermal energy, and then later, efficiently release this energy.

The BauGF™ is a proprietary structural hollow concrete floor system that is also an omni-directional return air plenum, and is also a very efficient thermal energy storage device.

In climates such as California, where night air is cooler than daytime air, very significant savings of energy can be achieved by using BauGF™ designs.

During the summer, cool night air is ...

More >>

The energy supply of today is based on the use of fossil fuels despite their large environmental impact and the stocks of fossil fuels are diminishing. There is a critical need for developing the renewable energy technologies and the global market of solar cells is growing at approximately 50% per year. Increased cell efficiency and reduced manufacturing expenses are still, nevertheless, utmost critical in making photovoltaics more competitive. Photovoltaic devices of today suffer from very high material cost and low energy conversion efficiencies. Advanced multi-junction solar cells exist and are indeed much more efficient but far too expensive.
The ...

More >>