Four Exciting new ‘Green’ Technologies that Make a Better World

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As civilisation develops, concerns about the environment are at an all-time high. However, technology enables innovation like never before, and a lot of exciting new green technology is on the anvil. Here are four major new green technologies that promise to make the world a better place.

1. Every Home Becomes a Mini Air Purifier

One new practical green technology that has the potential to revolutionise the world is “purifying roof tiles,” or roof tiles coated with titanium dioxide. Nitrogen-oxide, widespread in the earth owing to the natural nitrogen cycle, and also owing to fossil fuel consumption in automobiles, industrial activity, agriculture, and other unavoidable human activities, is a major polluter across the world. When titanium dioxide is exposed to the sun’s UV rays, it undergoes photocatalyst, with the nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds oxidized into soluble nitrates and fatty acids. Early studies estimate a thick coating reducing the target greenhouse gases by a whopping 97 percent, or a single average home capable of removing 21 grammes of nitrogen oxide a day. This equals the quantity of nitrogen oxide a car emits while driving 18,000 kilometres! The spin-off benefit is the light colour of these tiles delivering a cooling effect! All this for just five dollars, the cost of coat an average sized roof with the coating material.

Variants of purifying roof tiles are already popular. For instance, the façade of Mexico City’s Manuel Gea Gonzalez Hospital breaks down air pollutants, on exposure to UV light. The building’s intuitive honeycomb design increases the surface area by 200 percent, purifying even more air. This single building neutralises the same quantity of pollutants generated by 8,750 cars in one day! Likewise, a massive structure proposed in front of the Palazzo Italia, Milan, would convert harmful pollutants into unreactive salt molecules, on reaction with UV light.

2. Pathways Generate Energy

While the focus on environment protection has hitherto been on energy conservation in buildings, a breakthrough in technology actually enables harvesting energy from buildings. Pavegen, an energy-harvesting tile that converts footsteps into electricity, with the kinetic electricity thus generated stored and used to power streetlights, vending machines, and other devices. Pavegen, installed at the finish line of the Paris Marathon, generated 4.7 kilowatt-hours of energy.

Taking the concept further, the world’s first solar panelled road opened in a Normandy village. The Netherlands have already successfully experimented with solar powered cycle tracks, to light up entire homes.

In a related development, engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have conjured up wooden floorboards that generate energy from footsteps. These floorboards, made from wood pulp, leverage electromagnetic induction generated by the embedded nanofibers.

It gets better. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have come up with a smart fabric that harnesses kinetic energy from human bodies. The energy generated as people move around would suffice to monitor health indicators, charge electronic devices, and for other uses, reducing or even doing away with the need for batteries.

3. Walls Get a Life

Sustainability of the urban ecosystem has always been in question, but for not much longer, if “living walls” go mainstream. Living walls can assume a wide array of forms, ranging from vertical plant gardens to vertical farms.

The benefits of such living walls are manifold, extending to absorbing heat and carbon dioxide, offering a cooling effect inside to conserve energy, providing a natural habitat for animals, doing away with resource intensive food production, and more, besides being aesthetically pleasing.

4. The Dead become Trees

The most bone-chilling innovative new green technology is perhaps Capsula Mundi, or placing dead bodies in a biodegradable pod, with a tree planted above. The body degrades over time, and provides nutrients for the tree to grow. The dead are preserved for eternity as an environmentally friendly tree!

These innovative new technologies are on top of the existing and emerging technologies that harness the wind and solar energy, wind turbines, hydrogen fuel cells, rainwater recycling systems, technologies to desalinate seawater, and much more. Also, if air purifying roof times are not yet in fashion, solar roof tiles, which come in an array of shapes and styles, are already mainstream, and contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases and fossil fuel consumption in a big way.

It is exciting times ahead companies that aim to roll out green technologies. It pays to keep abreast with the trend and invest in such companies. Reliable brokerages such as CMC Markets offer convenient online platforms to track and invest in such companies.

  

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