Boiling water is one of the most crucial needs on Earth. Boiling water makes it safer to drink, can be used to sanitize cooking implements, clothing, and medical tools, and has a host of other uses. But to boil water, you generally need fire of some sort, and that can be very tricky in some of the toughest parts of the world. So MIT developed a way to get water up to boiling with an unusual ingredient: bubble wrap.
MIT had already developed a “sponge” that boils water when you put it in. Also called a “solar vapor generator,” the “sponge” is essentially a thin piece of copper treated to absorb specific parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. When you expose it to the sun, it absorbs the heat, and as water is forced through it, heats up that water. The only issue was that you needed to focus sunlight on the sponge to get it to work and that’s where bubble wrap comes in.
By carefully wrapping the sponge in bubble wrap, the need to focus sunlight to boil water is gone. The bubble wrap serves to both let in a small amount of water at a time and help contain the energy in the sponge. The water forced through heats up, and is ejected into the larger mass of water. In other words, you just need the sun to be out and shining on this sponge to get water boiling.
Obviously, this isn’t perfect; it won’t work for a fair chunk of the day, after all. But by the same token, being able to boil water without fire will be an enormous help to the developing world, in areas without fuel or crucial infrastructure, and in places that might be cut off suddenly from those sources. See, bubble wrap really can do everything.
(Via New Atlas)
