Tag: water
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Fast, Inexpensive Test for Water Bacteria Developed
18 May 2016. A team at York University in Toronto designed a water-testing kit connecting to a smartphone that makes testing for water-borne bacteria faster and less expensive. The Mobile Water Kit, from the lab of engineering professor Sushanta Mitra, is described in a recent issue of the journal Analyst (free registration required). Developers of the…
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Challenge Seeks Nutrient Recycling from Livestock Waste
4 December 2015. A public-private consortium seeks techniques for recycling crop nutrients from livestock waste in an open-innovation challenge paying $20,000 in prizes. The competition, sponsored by Environmental Protection Agency and a number of partners in government, academia, not-for-profit organizations, and industry has a deadline of 15 January 2016 for initial submissions. The challenge itself…
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UC-Davis Spins Off Irrigation Technology Start-Up
19 March 2015. A graduate student in agriculture at University of California in Davis turned his research on irrigation technology into a new enterprise addressing the chronic drought conditions facing that state’s farmers. Tom Shapland started Tule Technologies Inc. in January 2014 that licensed his research measuring agricultural water use from the university. Tule (pronounced…
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Patent Issued for Engineered Peptides Forming Hydrogels
4 November 2014. Bioengineers at Kansas State University received a patent for their invention of a peptide, a protein-like compound, that turns into water-based gels for a number of medical applications. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded patent number 8,835,395 to Xiuzhi (Susan) Sun, professor of grain science and bioengineering at Kansas State, as well…
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Solar Water-Splitting System Produces Hydrogen for Energy
26 September 2014. Engineers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland designed a solar energy system made of inexpensive and abundant materials that efficiently splits water into hydrogen and oxygen for producing electricity. The team from the lab of EPFL’s Michael Grätzel, with colleagues from Singapore and Korea, published its findings in today’s…
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Student Designs Simple Water Filter, Seeks Crowdfunding
24 July 2014. An engineering student at ETH Zurich, a science and technology university in Switzerland, designed a simple, inexpensive water filter to bring drinking water to developing countries that lack reliable clean water sources. Jeremy Nussbaumer developed the DrinkPure filter while an undergraduate at ETH Zurich, and now has a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo…
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Farm Survey Drone System Seeks Crowdfunding Support
21 July 2014. A system that combines an aerial drone with Android tablet and software designed to survey a grower’s crop fields is seeking crowdfunding contributors. The StitchCam system by San Diego start-up SNAP Vision Technologies LLC is the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, but needs to raise more than $92,000 of its $100,000 goal…
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Microparticle Solution Devised to Identify Genuine Goods
14 April 2014. Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the affiliated Lincoln Laboratory developed a process for adding minute particles into materials that can be encoded and sensed by inexpensive readers to detect counterfeit goods from the originals. The team from the lab of chemical engineering professor Patrick Doyle published its findings yesterday online…
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Virtual Fish in Development for Environmental Toxin Testing
13 March 2014. Researchers at Plymouth University in the U.K. and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca are developing a technique to gauge potential toxic effects of chemicals in rivers and oceans using cells from fish configured into a testing device. The three-year, £600,000 ($998,000) project of biologist Awadhesh Jha with colleagues from Plymouth and AstraZeneca is funded by U.K. science…
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Challenge Seeks Better Metal Removal Method from Mine Water
7 February 2014. A new challenge on InnoCentive asks for new, less expensive techniques to remove metals from water that drains from mines, both current and inactive. The competition has a total purse of $12,000 and a deadline of 8 March 2014 (free registration required). InnoCentive in Waltham, Massachusetts conducts open-innovation, crowd-sourcing competitions for corporate…