A Way To Turn Plastic Waste Into $78 Million of Biofuel: Turning Banana Peels Into Bioplastic
A Way To Turn Plastic Waste Into $78 Million of Biofuel: Turning Banana Peels Into Bioplastic
A Way To Turn Plastic Waste Into $78 Million of Biofuel: Turning Banana Peels Into Bioplastic
16-year-old Egyptian student Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad, meanwhile, was at work finding a
way to make use of waste plastic. The budding scientist discovered a catalyst that could turn
Egypts one million tons of annually discarded plastic into a phenomenal $78 million worth
of biofuel each year. She hopes that the development could provide an economically
efficient method for production of hydrocarbon fuel, and many appear to agree; Faiad has
been awarded the European Fusion Development Agreement award at the 23rd European
Union Contest for Young Scientists, and is seeking patents for her discovery.
13-year-old Aidan Dwyer is by far the youngest of the brilliant teenage minds in our list.
The 7th grader observed the patterns of tree branches while he was on a hike and considered
that such patterns could be utilized to improve the efficiency of solar trees. By utilizing the
Fibonacci sequence, he was able to generate a formula that produced a solar tree design that
appeared to yield 20-50% more power than an equivalent flat solar array. While Dwyers
calculations werent absolutely correct, thebiomimicry experiment earned the 13-year-old a
provisional patent.
Wearing corrective eye glasses could soon be a thing of the past. The
Ocumetics Bionic Lens, invented by Dr. Garth Webb of Ocumetics Technology
Corp, claims to be a painless implant that could change impaired vision forever. In
fact, Webb claims the lens will go beyond the standard 20/20 vision, giving patients
the super power of seeing three times better.
Presented earlier this year at a cataract and refractive surgery conference, the
Ocumetic Bionic Lens was created after eight years of research and
experimentation. The project itself has cost a whopping $3 million in funding for
research, international patents, and trials. Webb says that with his procedure, which
takes just eight painless minutes, every person could have extraordinary eyesight.
Related: Australian Research Group Announces First Implantation of a Bionic
Eye:Instead of working like a contact lens, the Bionic Lens acts similarly to cataract
surgery, adhering to the eyes natural lens. The procedure can be done in an out
patient office, its steps simply having a saline solution with the lens flushed into the
eye with a syringe. After 10 seconds, the folded lens opens up, and moves itself over
the eyes natural lens. Webb says that immediately after the procedure, vision is
totally corrected, allowing patients to see farther and more clearly.
Patients with the bionic lens implanted would be safeguarded against cataracts in
the future, strengthening the eyes natural lens which is prone to decay. The
procedure is also thought to be safer than invasive laser surgery, with the simple
saline-flush process.
Webb hopes his patent will be available as soon as 2017, after more clinical trials.
Engineers at MIT spend a lot of time figuring out how to make things better, faster,
and often smaller. Now, powerful new magnet technology has led the way to a
groundbreaking design for a small, modular fusion ARC reactor that generates
the same amount of power as its larger predecessors. MIT researchers believe this
new concept could be realized in as little as 10 years, and this type of power
generation could be the clean, renewable energy the world has been waiting for.