Hold the salt ‘n make room for all those extra ice cubes. You go SJSU – Rah!

Necessity is the mother of invention, and who is most likely to run out of ice cubes on a Friday night? You guessed it…..college students! Go figure they’d invent a solar ice maker. You gotta love ‘em.

In all seriousness, the San Jose State University mechanical engineering students probably didn’t have a lot of time on their hands to party and drink margaritas. They were too busy carving out their place in history by inventing a solar powered ice maker that puts out fourteen pounds of ice per day.

These trailblazers have opened up a whole new world of possibilities and opportunities ranging from solar air conditioning to helping people in third world countries who don’t have the luxury of electricity but could sure use some ice.

The solar icemaker makes ice from the sun’s heat; it implements an intermittent absorption refrigeration cycle (that’s brain talk for “it makes ice from the suns heat.”)

Once you see how this thing works, you’re going to hit yourself upside your head with your shoe and say to yourself “why didn’t I think of that?” Well, maybe you never ran out of ice cubes, or maybe the absurd idea of making ice from the sun never crossed your mind. Historically speaking, electricity was once considered “an absurd idea.”

Just as electricity had its place in time, the solar ice maker will no doubt be a beneficial blessing to humankind. Here’s how it works: the students use two materials to create a chemical reaction that becomes so cold that anything near it freezes. When exposed to the sun, the “refrigerant” evaporates and, as it evaporates, the vapor travels through pipes that come into contact with an absorbent material that cools when the sun sets. To create ice continuously, the chemical reaction is produced over and over again by separating the two chemicals with the heat of the sun and then combining them again at night.

It’s pretty simple. It has a zero carbon footprint. No greenhouse gasses are emitted. No chemicals are emitted to deplete the ozone layer. There are no moving parts, no compressors, no electricity, no maintenance – just sun. What you end up with is an electric-less refrigeration and air conditioning system that’s eco friendly.

The students’ prototype isn’t available yet, but the project has been entered into several design and business plan competitions and hopefully will be a household name in the very near future. When they announce their IPO, I’m calling my stock broker!

A special congratulations to the SJSU mechanical engineering students Jeremy Locquiao, Randy Pascua, Jeff Yangsamaran, and Jorge Guerrero. The engineering faculty advisors Jinny Rhee and Jim Mokri. And, their business faculty advisor from the College of Business, Anu Basu. Thank you for your innovation, ingenuity, and the giant leap forward in making this planet greener.

Posted on November 14th in Solar Products by Beth.