Product Design
To design OE Electronics a blue-sky product which made use of future power technologies, it needed to promote innovation in their future development pipeline.
I started by identifying occasions in our daily lives when power for devices is often needed but is rarely available or existing solutions aren’t appropriate, and then researched appropriate future charging technologies that would solve the problem areas I had identified. After presenting three design solutions half way through the process to two delegates from OE Electronics, they identified one idea as the one they would like me to develop further.
The idea made use of Artificial Photosynthesis. Artificial Photosynthesis is a biochemical process that uses sunlight and a catalyst (bacteria) to split water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen gas. This gas can be used as fuel to generate electricity.
A device that was able to desalinate or purify water and generate electricity through Artificial Photosynthesis, an application for this might be out at sea for leisure or in emergencies. The technology is fairly new and inefficient, large scale funding in USA and EU shows that there is potential for future advances in this sustainable energy source.
