guyanatimesgy.com
August 11 , 2013
Times Sunday Magazine19
The egg box that updates a humble yet classic design I
t is just over 100 years since Canadian inventor Joseph Coyle perfected a design to prevent eggs breaking on their way to market. His design was the first egg carton, offering a measure of protection for this most breakable of commodities. Coyle’s cardboard creation was first made by hand before a machine was invented to manufacture them after World War I. Later in the 1950s, British designer H G Bennett created the design we see on supermarket shelves and in corner stores – made of cardboard, moulded paper pulp or plastic, and with an individual space for each egg to sit. As food packaging has become more sophisticated – from aseptic linings in cartons of milk to vacuum-packed fish – the humble egg carton has changed little. Shock absorbing and cheap to produce, the carton has also become a signifier for what it contains – you don’t need to see the eggs to know what it contains. Hungarian design student Eva Valicsek, however, may have come up with a replacement. Her concept for an egg carton of the future – made of cardboard and a rubber band – was made for a university competition but has already received some cautious commercial interest. Her redesign came from a challenge
Eva Valicsek designed her replacement for the current egg carton as part of her course studying package design at the University of West Hungary (BBC/Nora Denes)
set by the Institute of Applied Art at the University of West Hungary, in the city of Sopron, where she was studying. “I looked at existing egg cartons and found many problems with them,” she says. “Most importantly, the existing boxes cannot be adjusted to the size of the eggs - smaller eggs may turn around in the stand.” The current egg box protects the eggs but also keeps them out of sight; when we buy
other products, such as fruit and vegetables, we’re able to choose exactly which ones we want to buy. The open top is one of the most striking elements of Valicsek’s rethink. “As a starting point I wanted to design a flexible box to fit the different egg sizes,” she says. “I made many models to find the right form. During these experiments, I accidentally used a rubber band that was sitting on my table - then
realised that I found the perfect solution.” The box also had to be easy to transport. Valicsek designed the carton so it could fold up flat, making it easier to move. “I designed a carton that can be flatpacked. I assembled my piece without using any glue; the carton is fixed to the base at one point.” Those whose eggs have survived a drop or crush thanks to the relative strength of the traditional egg box may view the opentopped re-imagination with some suspicion. But Valicsek believes her design is just as robust as the current model. “The eggs are held firmly in the carton thanks to the flexible rubber band and the cut-out holes, you can even turn the box into its sizes, and the eggs will not break. It can stand lateral forces. The eggs will not roll out.” The cardboard used to make Valicsek’s design is environmentally friendly – and recyclable. She says the box can be reused many times. At the moment, she adds, the egg box is “still an idea, not a product.” But there has been tentative interest, partly because of the flat pack design. “I had a call a month ago from a Croatian producer and we have just started discussions,” Valicsek says. (BBC Future)
Could carbon dioxide be converted to electricity?
T
he greenhouse gases produced by power plants could be a source of electricity, says new research. A new paper published this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, written by a team of researchers in the Netherlands, describes how CO2 could be mixed with a fluid electrolyte, generating electrical energy in the process. A press release from the American Chemical Society, which publishes the journal, calls this a "trash-to-treasure" story, saying it could help produce billions of kilowatts of energy every year while reducing the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. The research was conducted at Wetsus, which describes itself as a centre for excellence for sustainable water technology. The team
forced CO2 into water and other fluids, where the carbon dioxide split into positive and negative ions. Two special membranes were placed on either side of the water, one of which the positive ions could pass through and another which the negative ions could pass through. This produced a flow of electrons between the two membranes which could be captured by an electrode. Voila, electricity.
Too good to be true?
The research to date is just a proof of concept, and it actually uses more electricity than it generates, but lead researcher Bert Hamelers told NBC News that it could be scaled up and there are alternative approaches that could flip that equation. If truly scaled up to massive proportions, the researchers say this new process could help to use the 12
billion tons of CO2 released every year by burning coal, oil and natural gas to produce electricity (another 11 billion tons are generated by home and commercial heating). They say that using all of the CO2 from power plants, industrial factories and residences could generate more than 1.5 trillion kilowatts of electricity every year. That, according to the paper, is 400 times more energy than is generated annually by the Hoover Dam. Of course, the process doesn't actually consume the CO2. It just puts it to use, so the carbon dioxide may still need to be captured in some way rather than released into the atmosphere. But Hamelers told NBC News that this process could put to use energy that would otherwise be wasted, making power plants and other facilities more ef-
ficient and allowing them to produce more electricity without increasing their
levels of CO2 emissions. Hamelers' previous research has covered topics
such as microbial fuel cells and removing heavy metals from sewage. (mnn.com)