Skip to main content

Solar-powered fridge built from household materials

It's the kind of simple yet brilliant invention that would have the tycoons of Dragons' Den salivating with excitement.
Not only is the fridge solar powered, it can also be built from household materials  -  making it ideal for the Third World.
Emily Cummins, 21, came up with the idea while working on a school project in her grandfather's potting shed. The fridge is now improving the lives of thousands of poverty-stricken Africans.
Emily Cummins holds the portable eco-fridge. It can keep perishable goods, such as milk or meat, cool for days at a temperature of around 6C
And Miss Cummins hopes to patent a more sophisticated portable model for use in transporting medical supplies around hot countries.
From the age of four, when she was given a hammer as a gift, Miss Cummins has spent much of her spare time making things out of ordinary materials.
She has won awards for a toothpaste squeezer for arthritis sufferers and for a water-carrying device, again for Third World use.

Her 'sustainable' fridge works through evaporation and can be used to keep perishable goods such as milk and meat cool for days.
Without using any power, temperatures stay at around 6c.
The fridge comprises two cylinders  -  one inside the other. The inner cylinder is made from metal but the outer cylinder can be made from anything to hand, including wood and plastic.
Miss Cummins, from Keighley, West Yorkshire, said: 'A fridge is something that people can't seem to live without.
'I wanted to keep it really simple and so I set about researching how we cooled things years ago. The simplest method of cooling something could be seen when you look at how we cool biologically  -  through sweating or evaporation.
'That idea led me to the design and the fridge was born.'




After her A-levels she spent five months of her gap year in Africa, perfecting and demonstrating her product. In Namibia she became known as 'The Fridge Lady'. Miss Cummins returned to the UK to start a business management course at Leeds University. 
She had been refused a place on an engineering course because, to her dismay, she didn't have the correct qualifications. 
Last year she met the Queen at Buckingham Palace after being invited to a prestigious women in business event.






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Silent headset lets users quietly commune with computers

Advances in voice recognition technology have seen it become a more viable form of computer interface, but it's not necessarily a quieter one. To prevent the click-clacking of keyboards being replaced by noisy man-machine conversations, MIT researchers are developing a new system called AlterEgo that allows people to talk to computers without speaking and listen to them without using their ears. At first glance, the AlterEgo headpiece looks like the product of a design student who didn't pay attention in class. Instead of the familiar combination of an earpiece and microphone, the device is a cumbersome white plastic curve like the jawbone of some strange animal that hangs off the wearer's ear and arcs over to touch the chin. It might look strange, but it's based on some fairly sophisticated technology. Inside the Alterego are electrodes that scan the jaw and face from neuromuscular signals produced when the wearer thinks about verbalizing words without...

Water purification: Running fuel cells on bacteria to purify water

Researchers in Norway have succeeded in getting bacteria to power a fuel cell. The "fuel" used is wastewater, and the products of the process are purified water droplets and electricity. This is an environmentally-friendly process for the purification of water derived from industrial processes and suchlike. It also generates small amounts of electricity -- in practice enough to drive a small fan, a sensor or a light-emitting diode. In the future, the researchers hope to scale up this energy generation to enable the same energy to be used to power the water purification process , which commonly consists of many stages, often involving mechanical and energy-demanding decontamination steps at its outset. Nature's own generator The biological fuel cell is powered by entirely natural processes -- with the help of living microorganisms. "In simple terms, this type of fuel cell works because the bacteria consume the waste materials found in the water," explains SINTEF...

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Small Intro About Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by Jack Thorne. It is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with the past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is one play presented in two Parts, which are intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings. ...