By
John Vibes
Last week, True Activist published a
story about a 15 year old who invented a shoe insole that creates electricity while you walk. His device was a submission for this year’s “Google Science Fair” which features a number of brilliant inventions, many of which were created by teenagers and young children.
Another finalist in this year’s contest is 17-year-old Cynthia Sin Nga Lam from Australia, who also has an invention that creates electricity. Her invention is a water purification system that does not require an external power source, but actually creates electricity of its own.
Her device, which she calls a Portable Photocatalytic Electricity Generation and Water Purification Unit, or H2Pro for short, produces both clean energy and fresh water at the same time.
She hopes that one day her invention can be used to bring water and electricity to people in remote, poverty stricken areas who are currently struggling to find access to these basic amenities.
Cynthia explained in her application that “The entire process only needs titania and light — no additional power source is required. However, hydrogen production is generally low since photoexcited electrons tend to fall back to the hole (i.e. photoinduced electron-hole combination.) Fortunately, it can be overcome by adding reductants, while some organic pollutants serve such purpose. Hence, I propose to combine the two mechanisms together to enhance the yield and lower the cost of hydrogen generation, meanwhile efficient water purification can also be achieved.”