Energy and the Environment: Design and Innovation (2023-2024)
Each year, students on this team partner with faculty on year-long projects focused on identifying, designing and prototyping new energy technologies, systems or approaches. Subteams address the tradeoffs among technological design choices, environmental impacts, economic viability and other issues related to use. Their goal is to produce a useful prototype and evaluate its environmental benefits and viability.
In 2023-2024, one subteam addressed a need for filtered water at the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park in Columbia as a tool to reduce and eventually eliminate single-use plastic water bottles from the sensitive environment, on which the indigenous population depends. This team used mechanical power from a Pelton turbine to pump water from the stream through a filter. Read more in this team’s poster and final report.
The other subteam considered the potential for energy harvesting from thermal exhausts. The team considered a range of opportunities for delivery and use of the energy, concluding that the best uses would be for low-power closed-loop applications such as battery charging, monitoring equipment, and security systems. Read more in this team’s poster and final report.
Across both teams, students gained experience working in teams that have different types of expertise, motivated by a range of concerns and abilities encompassing technical, social, environmental and economic. Team members also practiced communication between disciplines and to external audiences, through live presentations, posters and written reports.
Timing
Fall 2023 – Spring 2024
Team Outputs
Engineering a Hydropower Water Purification System for Rural Riparian Communities (Poster presented at Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Virtual Showcase, April 17, 2024)
Hydropower Water Purification Device (Report)
Assessing Feasibility of Small-Scale Wind Energy Harvesting Systems (Poster presented at Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Virtual Showcase, April 17, 2024)
Small-Scale Wind Energy Harvesting Through Turbine Systems for Exhaust Vents (Report)
See related teams, Energy and the Environment: Design and Innovation (2024-2025) and Energy and the Environment: Design and Innovation (2022-2023).
Image: Smart Home gardens, by Jared Lazarus/Duke University