SMART key chain
A three-week design sprint for designing an EDC for Covid-19 Precautions, resulting in a market ready product.
https://www.ideo.com/case-study/a-sleek-seamless-apple-watch-camera-band
Challenge
Reduce the spread of Coronavirus
I decided to come up with a device which would alter the temperature of small volume of water instantly, as heating large portions of liquid would take a lot of time and energy and also lots of energy to maintain the state of liquid at the desired temperature.
So i came up with the idea of having a straw which would heat water when water flows through it. The advantage being only the water that is consumed is heated. I performed CFD simulation to find the basic parameters.
A large battery was required to meet the high energy requirement to raise the temperature of water, for the desired mass flow rate.
The disadvantage was that high energy was needed to raise the temperature of water because of instant heating and also the poor heat transfer between the heating coil and the liquid.
Challenge was to design a device that would heat water at the least amount of time.
Ideated on different possible techniques and wanted to test a new idea of using water itself as the heating element. The heating element was working with the principle of resisting the flow of current and I was wondering if the same effect could be achieved using water as the heating element. This technique would eliminate considerable energy losses and would heat water instantly with minimal power.
Testing the concept of using water as the heating element, using two Aluminum plates. During testing a lot of bubbles were formed and the temperature of water didnot increase as expected.
My next challenge was to reduce the bubble formation and use the energy to heat the water. Developed a mechanism and excitation circuit to vibrate water molecules instantaneously, which would increase the temperature of water more rapidly and directly(without using a heating element)
Mounted the excitation mechanism on a Nalgene bottle
The test results seems promising and the concept of using water as the heating element could revolutionize the heating industry.After testing few prototypes, my concept achieved 87% efficiency (theroretically i could reach efficiencies close to 95%). It raised the temperature of water instantly just when you pour it. This mechanism also eliminates salts being deposited in the heating mechanism.
Currently working on optimizing the device and circuit to increase the efficiency and also collecting more parameters...