2024 Contest Now Accepting Entries!

Submit your best new product ideas for a chance at $25,000, other great prizes, and global recognition. If you already are registered, log in to access the entry form. Otherwise, click here to get started.

Help build a better tomorrow

Since Tech Briefs magazine launched the Create the Future Design contest in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovation, over 15,000 design ideas have been submitted by engineers, students, and entrepreneurs across six continents. You can also join the innovators who dared to dream big and build a better tomorrow by entering this year’s contest.

Read About Past Winners’ Success Stories

Over the past 20 years, many innovators have used the recognition afforded by the contest to advance the development and marketing of their technologies. We highlight some success stories of past winners who have brought their inventions to the marketplace.

Click here to read more

A ‘Create the Future’ Winner Featured on ‘Here’s an Idea’

Spinal cord injury affects 17,000 Americans and 700,000 people worldwide each year. A research team at NeuroPair, Inc. won the Grand Prize in the 2023 Create the Future Design Contest for a revolutionary approach to spinal cord repair. In this Here’s an Idea podcast episode, Dr. Johannes Dapprich, NeuroPair’s CEO and founder, discusses their groundbreaking approach that addresses a critical need in the medical field, offering a fast and minimally invasive solution to a long-standing problem.

Listen now

Thank you from our Sponsors

“At COMSOL, we are very excited to recognize innovators and their important work this year. We are grateful for the opportunity to support the Create the Future Design Contest, which is an excellent platform for designers to showcase their ideas and products in front of a worldwide audience. Best of luck to all participants!”

— Bernt Nilsson, Senior Vice President of Marketing, COMSOL, Inc.

“From our beginnings, Mouser has supported engineers, innovators and students. We are proud of our longstanding support for the Create the Future Design Contest and the many innovations it has inspired.”

— Kevin Hess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Mouser Electronics

Follow Create the Future

Making Fuel from Vehicular Emissions

Votes: 326
Views: 43022

Turning polluting emissions into liquid fuel seems rather improbable, doesn't it?

But I have developed a technology which can generate liquid fuel from harmful gases that are produced when fuel is burnt by a vehicle. If commercialized, and further researched, the new technology could lead to a massive reduction in pollution levels of the country.

FUEL MAKING: The bio remediation-based catalytic convertor creates liquid fuel out of emissions. To make fuel from carbon emissions, I tweaked the catalytic convertor of a vehicle to prevent it from using any chemicals and instead use Algae named coccolithophorids with media, enabling it to reduce emissions and in the process produce liquid fuel.

Our urge to create a “green catalytic convertor.” Right now all catalytic convertors used in vehicles are using chemicals such as ammonia which are not environment friendly. In 2008, ruminating over my idea with Ankit Kaushik, 22, a biotechnology engineer, i decided to use in the catalytic convertors bacteria which have the property of digesting carbon dioxide. I was inspired by an oil spill cleaning solution developed by The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi & also the Alaska Oil Spills.

After about a year’s research on a single-celled algae called the coccolithophorids that are found at the bottom of ponds, i developed a multi-pass catalytic convertor using an economizer which is mostly used for extracting waste heat in power plants. Initially, testing I used a single solar tube bio reductor tube and lined it with the coccolithophorids.

When a vehicle starts burning the fuel, the gases pass through the bacteria-lined pipe and during the flu gas filtration process the coccolithophorids eat up the carbon dioxide, digest it, and as a result produce lipids in the liquid form. As this liquid is heavier than other gases, it gets collected at the bottom of the convertor and are called coccoliths. The collected liquid can be used as a fuel to fire up stoves and in cooking applications. My aims to introduce this liquid fuel into rural areas and provide it at minimal or no cost so that it can be seen as a sustainable green option.

Since then I have improved the catalytic convertor and has won many awards including the Quest Ingenium 2011 organized by Rolls Royce, a unique design contest for engineers in India and also I was featured in Massachusetts Institute of Technology as 35 young innovators of the world. The new convertor is 7 inches broad and 12 inches long in size, bigger than the conventional convertors. It is attached to a pipe, with 1 inch diameter, and lined with the algae. i attached the new convertor to a custom-made single-cylinder 340 cc vehicle (attached) and got approx. 650 milliliters of liquid fuel by driving vehicle for 200KM, which has properties much similar to kerosene.

I might strike gold if someone could change the genome of this bacteria and make it more efficient at high temperatures and enable it to produce better quality of fuel,

  • Awards

  • 2012 Top 10 Most Popular

Voting

Voting is closed!

  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Jaideep Singh
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    never
  • Jaideep's favorite design and analysis tools:
    Nx 7.5 For Modelling, Nastran Nx for FEA, Suspension Analyser by Performance Trends and Lotus Shark For motor-sport Suspension optimization, Ricardo Wave for engine optimization
  • Jaideep's hobbies and activities:
    Playing Drums,Trekking, Travelling, Offroad Racing
  • Jaideep belongs to these online communities:
    Facebook
  • Jaideep is inspired by:
    Inspiration comes from the human need to come closer to nature to protect its existance. Use of natural remedies is the most encouraged way to stay green and clean. . I was inspired by oil spill cleaning solution developed by The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi using Algae & also the Alaska Oil Spills where natural algae are used for cleaning.
  • Patent status:
    pending