The Tech Museum Awards is an international award and gala ceremony honouring people’s efforts in “technology benefiting humanity.” Individuals, non-profit, and for-profit companies can be nominated and are judged in five categories: education, equality, environment, health, and economic development. These are the 2007 winners in the environmental category.
Emulsified Zero-Valent Iron (EZVI) is a method for cleaning groundwater that has been contaminated by, for example, solvents washed away from machinery. Metal particles surrounded by a membrane of cooking oil attract contaminants, and can be injected directly into the ground, eliminating the need to pump out groundwater to clean it.
Marc-André Ledoux discovered that a harmful algae in Senegal— an introduced species that has reduced biodiversity, blocked irrigation channels, provided habitat for mosquitoes, and contaminated drinking water— can be harvested to provide fuel for cooking. He created a type of floating grapple that efficiently collects the plants, which are then dried in the sun and extruded by machine into a form of charcoal, which can then be burned.
Joe David Jones combined two existing technologies to make an efficient system of cleaning coal-fired power plant smokestacks. Carbon dioxide is electrochemically altered to form non-toxic bicarbonate, and harmful substances like mercury, acid gases, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxides, are trapped. The final result is a collection of profitable chemicals, adding a financial incentive for companies to retrofit their smokestacks.
The Solar Sailor is a boat that looks like it has wings— a hybrid between solar power, wind, and a diesel engine, its sails also collect sunlight, which is used to charge the hybrid diesel engine batteries. With multiple power sources, it’s safer and more reliable than a typical watercraft, and it can save up to 90% in fuel.
Last but not least, in Chile, long floats with seaweed seedlings attached to them are surrounding salmon farms and cleaning up their waste. Nitrogen waste from the aquaculture has been affecting nearby ecosystems, but the seaweed absorbs it and grows bigger as a result, thereby also providing a ready source of food to the farm and preventing the over-harvesting of other food sources.
