Top 5 curious sustainable inventions you cannot miss

Every year many sustainable gadgets or inventions come on the market with the idea of promoting environmental care and thus achieve a more sustainable development. Reducing our carbon footprint is essential to curb climate change, and this becomes more and more possible with the help of these and other inventions, like the desert refrigerator or the Hippo Water Roller.

We here tell you about some of the most curious and efficient inventions that use cleaner forms of energy somehow, such as solar energy, which can also help us to save.

These panels developed by Michigan State University are a revolution in the solar panels world. As they are transparent, they can be used in countless daily objects –windows, mobile-phone screens, computer screens…Imagine all the potential this breakthrough has for harnessing solar energy.

“A little organic molecule is capable of absorbing ultraviolet and infrared light spectra which are then led to the edge of the material in order to be transformed into electricity.” Moreover, this alternative is cheaper than other forms of solar power, so these panels could cost less.

Designer Mike Thompson has created the interesting light bulb ‘Latro’, which is powered by carbon dioxide, water and natural light. This bulb is lit through a simple process of seaweed photosynthesis, producing electricity.

Seaweeds generate a small amount of electric current when they do photosynthesis, and this is enough for the light bulb to be lit. It only needs to receive sunlight in daytime and our breath to provide it with the necessary CO₂. You have to breathe through the nozzle it has at the top to send CO₂ into it and a valve lets out the oxygen it generates. Another valve enables us to add the necessary water.

This surprising use of nature can thus provide us with light in a completely sustainable way. It is amazing, isn´t it?

This invention by the Spaniard Eusebio Moro has been able to draw attention from American and Mexican companies as well from other Latin American countries; eco-MMotion is a car system which helps to clean the air.

This device is set up at the bottom of the car and helps to purify the air without further expenses. It is a system through which the polluted air is collected at the front part of the vehicle and this goes through different pipes responsible for its purification. The air can thus be expelled again free of pollutants. “It could purify a nearly 1,500-cubic-metre/hour volume.”

This idea consists of replacing asphalt with solar panels. These high-density glass panels could light roadways at night by LED lights through the solar power stored, heat it up in cases of snow or ice, and it could even generate enough power to charge electric cars.

According to their creators, Idaho´s engineers Scott Brusaw and Julie Brusaw, the initial investment would be recovered because it could cover US supply three times over.

Many private companies have now developed and set up this form of generating electricity thanks to pedestrian circulation. In Europe´s biggest shopping centre, in London, 20 of these tiles have been laid, designed to get energy from the 40 million pedestrians that will go around the area.

These tiles will be able to cover half of the shopping centre´s outside lighting. This is just one of those instances in which kinetic energy is used to generate electricity through tiles, which are also designed to reduce the carbon footprint to the minimum (their flooring is made of tyre recycled rubber and nearly 80% of their components can be recycled).

These are just five of the sustainable inventions that experts, students and researchers seek to develop more and more in order to reach a model of sustainable development which curbs climate change by using clean forms of energy. Do you know any other curious invention we can share?

Sources: Lámpara de algas, Autopista solar y Paneles solares transparentes.