Everyone has seen crank flashlights that run on electricity created turning a crank, but what about a lamp that runs just by breathing into
it? An algae powered lamped designed by
Mike Thompson does just that. All this
lamp requires to provide light are three simple elements: sunlight, water, and
CO2. Recent research from
Stanford University has found a way to steal electric current from algae. The process works by sending an electric
charge through the algae to stimulate them into overproducing electrons, which
can then be leached from the algae and stored in a battery. All
that the owner needs to do is place the lamp in the sunlight during the day and
breath into the handle to ensure an ample supply of CO2 for the
algae.
Mike Thompson is not the only
person working with algae-powered lights, though. French biochemist Pierre Calleja has
developed a streetlight also powered by algae.
This light is much larger though, and has the capability to absorb one
ton of CO2 per year, which is as much as the average tree absorbs
over its entire lifetime. This means
that one of these streetlights absorbs 150-200 times the amount of CO2
a tree does.
Algae powered lamps seem light a
bright idea for the future, along with a great way to reduce CO2. Feel free to check out the articles on treehugger.com through
these links:
This is a super cool idea! Do you know if they used a specific type of algae or if different types of algae can be used for the lamp? This would be awesome to see people using this in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThe algae that the scientists used at Stanford University was Chlamydomonas. Here is an additional article with more information: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/JustOneThing/stealing-electricity-algae/story?id=10210700. It says that there are some kinks with using algae as a power source in this way, but it sounds like Mike Thompson and Pierre Calleja worked those out.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like algae is multipurpose organism of our future. It can replace not only light bulbs but also fossil-fuels, e.g. Jonathan Trent is working on a project of how to grow new biofuel by farming micro-algae in floating offshore pods that eat wastewater from cities. It is a great idea; I think that people can invent technologies and procedures that will be in harmony with nature. Check out: http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_trent_energy_from_floating_algae_pods.html
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ReplyDeleteI really love this idea! I would definitely use an algae lamp. The possibilities of this are endless and I would be excited to see this idea being implemented around the world.
ReplyDeleteI also love this sort of new technology. I think it's a perfect example of how we can merge eco-friendly principles and our industrialized world. I would just wonder if these types of lights would thrive in heavily polluted cities or would work even an apartment. I might like to look into that for my place.
ReplyDeleteThis technology seems really cool. Algae is so new to me, I only learned about it's properties just about a year or so ago, which is kind of sad, but algae has so many cool sustainable things you can do with it. I would definitely promote this product if I had the chance.
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