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Since Tech Briefs magazine launched the Create the Future Design contest in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovation, over 15,000 design ideas have been submitted by engineers, students, and entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries. Join the innovators who dared to dream big by entering your ideas today.

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Special Report spotlights the eight top entries in 2023 as well as past winners whose ideas are now in the market, making a difference in the world.

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A ‘Create the Future’ Winner Featured on ‘Here’s an Idea’

Spinal cord injury affects 17,000 Americans and 700,000 people worldwide each year. A research team at NeuroPair, Inc. won the Grand Prize in the 2023 Create the Future Design Contest for a revolutionary approach to spinal cord repair. In this Here’s an Idea podcast episode, Dr. Johannes Dapprich, NeuroPair’s CEO and founder, discusses their groundbreaking approach that addresses a critical need in the medical field, offering a fast and minimally invasive solution to a long-standing problem.

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Solar Ice Maker

Votes: 0
Views: 6845

What ispired this design is the death rate in third world countries as well as UNICEF's statement: "The capacity of National Immunization Programmes is strengthened so that every individual can benefit from vaccines of assured quality delivered in the right amount at the right time through efficient logistics, proper vaccine management, and a well-functioning cold chain system."

In fact thirty thousand children every day die from trivial diseases that could be prevented by vaccination. However, the difficulties of an immunization program consists not only in the amount of vaccines for the people, but also how such vaccines are stored during the transportation and before the dosing. The Solar Ice Maker is a fridge for the storage of vaccines that, following the advices of the World Health Organization, is completely autonomous and independent from electricity.

The parts of the solar ice maker are a solar collector connected to an evaporator and a condenser.

The system uses the properties of some solid materials (adsorbent materials) to fix on its surface, water vapor, methanol or ethanol vapor. The system operates alternating a useful night stage, in which the working fluid evaporates to give the cooling effect, to a daytime stage where the adsorbent is regenerated by solar radiation.

The minimum ice production of the machine is around 7.5kg which is used as a cold storage inside the fridge.

So the solar ice maker that we propose is a solar powered refrigeration unit (thermally driven) based on phenomena of ads/desorption of methanol vapors on active carbon.

IT DOESN'T NEED ELECTICITY, SKILLED OPERATORS OR MAINTENANCE.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Duilio Guetti
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Giulio Santori
    Matteo Moglie
    Emanuela Brunetti
  • Profession:
    PhD Student
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    never
  • Duilio's hobbies and activities:
    Snowboard, Surf, Indor footbal, bricolage
  • Duilio belongs to these online communities:
    Facebook
  • Duilio is inspired by:
    have a better world where to live!
  • Patent status:
    none