It’s an idea that could one day help save billions of litres of water. * Instead of simply wiping raindrops off our car windscreens, why not collect and reuse the water via the washer jets?
Brother and Sister Daniel and Lara Krohn were travelling in the family car last summer when the heavens opened. But when their dad Gerd, who was driving, tried to clear away the smears, the reservoir was empty – and the windscreen just got dirtier and dirtier.
The two clever kids’ idea to capture the raindrops and reuse them won first prize in a local science competition and has now been developed for a full-sized test car.
11-year-old Daniel, from Jülich, in Germany said:
“It was a downpour. There was water everywhere – except in the windscreen wiper reservoir. My sister and I thought this was really funny and then the answer suddenly seemed obvious. Simply reuse the rainwater.”
“We couldn’t believe that no-one had thought of it before,” added 9-year-old Lara. “To try it out, we took apart our toy fire engine and fixed the pump to a model car inside an aquarium. Then we added a filtering system to ensure the water was clean. It just worked really well.”
Engineers at Ford who heard about the idea were so intrigued that they offered to install a full sized device into a Ford S-MAX test car. To collect the water, rubber pipes connected the bottom of the windscreen to the reservoir.
Theo Geuecke, supervisor, Body Exterior Hardware, Ford of Europe said:
“Daniel and Lara’s idea has been staring drivers in the face for decades – and it has taken one moment of ingenuity to bring it to life. In less than five minutes of rainfall the washer reservoir is completely full.”
Water usage by vehicles is expected to increase as additional cameras and sensors also need to be kept clean. Ford engineers are already working on ways to capture water, via rain and condensation, including a way of gathering moisture from the air and filtering it into drinking water – On the-Go H20.
Nicci Russell, managing director, Waterwise said:
“What a brilliant idea! Innovations like these are essential to make the water we have go further. We will all need to change our behaviour to waste less water, but we’ll also need clever new bits of kit like the one Daniel and Lara have designed.”
* Drivers use around 20 litres each year to keep their windscreens clean. With 291 million cars on European roads, if such a “Krohn” system were in every car, it would save almost six billion litres of water each year.
Watch the video here: www.youtube.com
Scroll down to read more articles like this which have been published recently
Why not Sign-up to Receive these Articles by Email each Day
Why not Sign-up to Receive these Articles by Email each Day
* Read more current and archived articles on our dedicated website *
Low Cost and Free Publicity - Your company can easily benefit from some publicity like this in return for a contribution towards our layout costs (£55 to £75 plus VAT), payable in advance via PayPal or credit card or receive the service absolutely free of charge if you advertise (see below).
We post articles up to twice a day and never delete them - we only archive them each year so that they continue to remain visible to search engines.
To have your story published - just send us your news item, logo and image(s) and we will review the material, make any necessary changes to the wording / wordcount and then advise you when it will be published.
If you are a regular advertiser placing series bookings or subscribing to our VIP Packages in our printed and online publications, you will qualify for a specific number of free postings on this blog while you continue to advertise with us.
Also, if you purchase one of our Online and Print Combo packages, Featured Articles or Advertorial packages, posting on this blog is included in the price.
For details and rates for all of our advertising options in print and online, download our media pack contact us or visit our website.
Door Industry Journal is a trading style of Avalon Innovations LLP Company Registration No. 06807833
No comments:
Post a Comment