Emily Cummins, a 21 year old student from Keighley, West Yorkshire has designed a food storing fridge that doesn’t require electricity.The fridge works by exploiting the process of cooling by evaporation. Made out of simple components and easily available materials, the fridge can maintain a temperature of 6 degrees centigrade. The fridge is made out of 2 cylinders, the inner dry one for storage of foods and the outer empty one to provide space for evaporation. The outer cylinder is submerged in sand, soil or wool that are soaked in water to enable the cooling process.
I wanted to keep it really simple and so I set about researching how we cooled things years ago. The simplest method of cooling something could be seen when you look at how we cool biologically - through sweating or evaporation.
That idea led me to the design and the fridge was born.
Emily is now preparing to work on another version of the fridge that would be used for carrying medication in Africa. The design is brilliant, but I would like to know more about how much water is needed to keep the device running. After all, water is not easily accessible across Africa. Design innovation seems like one of the most important ways of moving on in developing countries. Another interesting example of innovative design for use in the developing world is the biomass stove, by a nonprofit company called Envirofit.
Image courtesy of Daily Mail.
0 Responses to “Keeping it cool”