AWE - Air, Water & Electricity

It generates electricity from waste heat which is produced during cooking process & also solar heat. The produced electricity is used to light a bulb, run a fan & also to generate water from air.

According to "ACTION4ENERGY," a United Nations Development Programme, about 1.3 billion people worldwide live without electricity. There are also 3 billion people living without clean cooking facilities, out of which more than 4.3 million people have already died due to the indoor pollution created by it. This research is focused on creating an environmentally friendly, portable thermoelectricity generating kit which produces thermoelectricity that can be readily used. The kit works in two modes; in first mode, the kit operates as a cooking stove which produces electricity from burning fuel (wood, coal, waste, cow dung, etc.); in second mode, the kit produces electricity from solar energy, but without solar cells. The kit is designed such that the pollution of the burned fuel is reduced to a great extent. The kit uses Peltier tiles, which are made up of thermoelectric materials capable of directly converting thermal energy into electricity and vice versa, for producing electricity which is clean, free and easily accessible. The part of the produced electricity is used for generating water from air by using thermoelectric coolers to cool the air. As air is condensed, water droplets are formed which can be used as potable water supply. This kit can help people who are deprived of electricity, people residing in the places where setting up transmission lines is difficult. Moreover this will also provide people with clean cooking facility and prevent them from diseases occurring due to indoor air pollution. This kit can also be used as a portable electricity producing incinerator at a larger scale which can light up the streets and small shops of small villages and towns which also solve the problem of proper garbage disposal without creating any pollution. Thus this projects helps the water, electricity, waste management & clean cooking facility problem all at once.

This Project deals with three problems namely scarcity of water, clean cooking facility. Even though the society is getting urbanized day by day but there are still millions of people who live in slums facing all these three problems. They still cook their food on open wood fire stove which creates a lot of indoor pollution and 4.3 million people have already died because of it. Moreover, they are dependent to the water which they were able to fill in whatever utensils they have. About 1.3 billion people still live without electricity which plays an important role for one's growth.

Still not every component of the project has been experimented with. But for the experimentation of the electricity produced from waste heat have been conducted. From the observations it was concluded that temperature by burning 2 small wood blocks in an enclosed vessel was higher than 270 degree Celsius which can produce nearly 5 volts by a single thermoelectric generator. Experiments have to be carried out for the condensation of air to water with the help of the Thermoelectric Coolers which will help to determine the time taken by the system to produce a certain amount of water.

It will impact the lives of people living without clean cooking facility, electricity, water & proper waste management facility. They will be provided with electricity for the basic purpose of a light bulb, fan and for the unit which also provide them with water. It will prevent the indoor pollution caused by conventional cooking methods. At larger scale it can work as portable electricity producing incinerator working as micro grids and solving waste management problem. In the beginning this solution can be deployed through NGOs, Waste Management Companies, Energy Sector, Government Initiatives, B2B and later even through the B2C channel.

Registration forms to register each customer to which the unit has been deployed followed by the inspection at a regular interval to check the status of the air pollution. - Individual homes provided with the clean cooking facility.

An algorithm will be prepared after experimentation process which will give the amount of waste being eradicated by measuring the amount of electricity which is produced from it. - The amount of waste/garbage is eradicated and is used to generate electricity.

The container in which the water will be collected will be equipped with the measuring scale to measure the amount of water produced. - The amount of water produced during the day for a unit.

This solution is unique in a way that it is using solar heat to generate electricity without the use of solar cells but instead using the Thermoelectric Generators. It is using waste heat generated during the cooking process/incineration process to produce electricity which is stored in a battery. While rest of the day it is using solar heat to generate electricity. The stored electricity is used for basic household purpose and for a separate compact unit which will produce water by condensing air. It’s a very unique solution as it can address all these problems at once at both scales. 

This solution surrounds itself around the people who still cook their food open fire stove & suffer with indoor pollution, people who are suffering from the scarcity of water & electricity and areas which are highly polluted with solid waste. With the help of this solution people will be able to cook their food with using any conventional fuel or even garbage but without any indoor pollution, at present the preventive measure for it is catalytic combustors. Thus, ultimately with the help of this solution the people will be really able to uplift their living standards towards a better future.

At the nascent stage the solution will be deployed mainly through NGOs and through Government Initiatives which are working in sector of the upliftment of the poor. Our target is to make the product available in the range of $100-$200 so that the end consumer can get the product for free through NGOs/Government Agencies. In the later stage the larger scale of the product can be deployed through energy sector like electricity provider so that they can work as electricity producing incinerators which can work as a micro grid for a particular area.

At present we hope to sustain ourselves either by trying to gather funds by winning entrepreneurial competitions or by bootstrapping ourselves with a partner who will support us while research, pilot, grow and scale our solution. We will also try to raise funds from Angel Investors or Venture Capitalists to do the same.

For the water producing aspect of the project, it might take a longer time to generate a desired amount of water. Moreover, during extreme conditions at certain places, it might not generate water. But still, it will produce electricity and perform its mentioned tasks & traits.

https://www.northeastern.edu/rise/presentations/portable-thermoelectricity-generating-kit/

Although our project has won couple of awards and recognition in the past, but still we have not been able to built a prototype yet. With the help of SOLVE we hope that we would be able to work on required research and experiments to build the first prototype. Becoming a Solver we expect to have such a technical guidance and support to make it happen. We also hope that through this platform we will be able to reach out to people who might help us to take this project to the end consumer and help to solve mentioned problems.

We don't have any partners yet. We are hoping that SOLVE might help us to land ourselves with some like minded partners.

We don't have any direct competitors as such because we can target such diverse & direct problems.