Technograph Spring 2016

VOLUME 133: SPRING 2016

HASTY AND HEALTHY

Startup company looks to cut time and hassle out of meal preparation.

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Student Engineering Magazine at the University of Illinois

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TECHNOSTAFF Technograph editor Abrar Al-Heeti Assistant Technograph editor Victoria Snell Editor-in-cheif Megan Jones Managing editor for reporting Declan Harty Managing editor for online Miranda Holloway Creative director Kelsie Travers Designers Juliany Nakazato Christine Ha Michelle Tam Copy editors Caitlin Bremner Claire Hettinger Jacqueline Orloff Writers Shahzmeen Hussain Susan Szuch Emily Scott Publisher Lilyan Levant Email technograph@dailyillini.com Mail Technograph 512 E. Green St, 3rd floor Champaign, IL 61820 Phone (217) 337-8350 AN ILLINI MEDIA MEDIA PUBLICATION COPYRIGHT 2015

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

BATTERY

TOVALA

BIOFILM

Method researched to desalinate water with battery elements

Company works to create quick, healthy meals

Researchers seek to improve water purification

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BY SUSAN SZUCH COPY CHIEF The road to finding the right battery to take the salt out of water was a long one for Kyle Smith.

The mechanical engineering professor and graduate student Rylan Dmello recently published a study in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society that found a way to potentially provide fresh water using the material in batteries and the smallest amount of energy possible.

Smith had been doing research on batteries for energy storage for several year, but when he came to the University in Fall 2014, something that happened in the lithium-ion batteries he studied piqued his curiosity. Within lithium-ion batteries, a material called electrolyte, which allows electricity to flow from one electrode to the other, contains lithium

ions – atoms that have a net positive or a net negative charge. These react with the electrolyte, which stores charge in either positie or negative charge of the battery. This reaction causes some salt to collect and be used inside of the battery.

While this is not the ideal thing to happen – accumulation and consumption of salt causes a battery to be less efficient – it reminded Smith of work done in the past using capacitors to take salt out of water.

“No one had ever thought about using the salt depletion process that occurs in lithium-ion batteries to get desalination out of a device that’s like a battery and not a capacitor,” Smith said.

The next step was to consider what kind of salt needed to be pulled out of the water.

Instead of a lithium-based salt like what was found in the batteries he was used to working

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7 with, he had to focus on batteries that were able to pull sodium chloride out of the water.

As he and Dmello performed computational models to determine how a sodiumion battery would be able to take the salt out of the electrodes before the opposing electrodes released salt back, they found that it wasn’t quite possible and would take a high charging rate to make a conventional battery like that desalinate water.

This was a surprise to Smith, and it threw him off course for a bit, until he realized that adding a membrane to the battery might be the solution to his problem.

“My original hypothesis was that (the conventional battery) would work,” Smith said. “When (Dmello) showed me the results from the simulation, I was stuck for a while, thinking, and eventually contemplating about it when I realized, ‘You know what? There’s another way to do this, we could actually add another component into the cell.’”

Having a membrane in the battery solved the problem of the sodium diffusing from one electrode over to the opposite electrode. These membranes are used in dialysis, to take salt out of blood.

Smith was quick to note that this is not the end of research on this subject, but rather “the final conclusion of a preliminary study.”

“We are focusing on trying to realize this device, experimentally. Up until this

point, we have predictions and we have a plan for the types of materials we’d like to use in this cell,” Smith said. “But where the rubber meets the road is really in actuality making a device.”

There is still a lot to study. It’s unclear how real sea water, which contains magnesium, calcium and sulfates, will react with the battery materials. Additionally, Smith is looking at how to tailor the battery to the size of the unit or the amount of desalinated water needed.

While Smith said there are currently no specific applications for which he intends to use the device, he acknowledged that there are many potential applications out there now: taking salt out of sea water, making briny water from estuaries drinkable, treating waste water or even using the desalinated water for manufacturing.

“We’re eager to find applications for it as these things develop. We’re excited about it.” szuch2@dailyillini.com

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BY EMILY SCOTT TECHNOGRAPH WRITER About two years ago, David Rabie was having a normal day in his kitchen when he had an idea.

It started with a problem. As a student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Rabie found that he no longer had the time or energy to make his own meals anymore. But he was used to eating healthy and controlling what he ate.

As he used his digital steamer, an appli-

ance that can cook several items at once, he thought about how it might work better.

What if there was an appliance that could cook multiple items at once, with multiple cooking functionalities, and that produced high-quality, healthy food in a short amount of time?

Today, this idea that started in Rabie’s kitchen has turned into a product that he hopes will one day be in every home kitchen. It’s called Tovala, a “smart” kitchen appliance that cooks pre-made, fresh meals prepared by a companion food service. The creators aim to appeal to young professionals who

9 want a healthy meal, but are not willing to sacrifice convenience or quality.

on the Italian word for table, “tavola,” and the Hebrew word for good, “tov.”

Tovala has evolved into a startup company, based out of Chicago and Champaign, that recently received $500,000 in seed funding and launched a Kickstarter campaign on March 8. They also recently began participating in Y Combinator, an early-stage startup fund.

“We love the idea of people sitting around a table, enjoying these meals with their family,” Rabie said.

But before it was Tovala, the company was called Maestro. Rabie and his team entered Maestro into the 2015 New Venture Challenge at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and won. Rabie said the win gave him momentum to start to build out the company and make contacts. One of these contacts, introduced to him by a mutual friend, was Bryan Wilcox, a University alumnus who earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering.

“It’s a novel enough idea that people are skeptical at first . . . to an investor it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting idea, but I’ve never heard of that before,’” Fiflis said. “Whereas you talk to somebody who’s in our target market, and they’re like, ‘I want one right now.’”

Wilcox, who owns a product development firm in Urbana, brought to the company the technical engineering skills that Rabie had been looking for.

“We found that we shared a lot of the same values, same work ethic, same aspirations,” Rabie said.

Then, in September 2015, Wilcox and Rabie hired their first employee, Peter Fiflis, a graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University. Fiflis had previously been working on an idea similar to Maestro, so he said the transition to become their lead engineer was seamless.

“I’ve been at development every step of the way, which has been pretty fun,” Fiflis said.

But a name change was in order for a variety of reasons — one of which was differentiating themselves from other companies with similar names. They went with Tovala, a play

From there, it was a matter of making a working device and convincing investors that they had a valid idea.

The device is meant to be used with the provided pre-made, fresh meals that range from $10 to $15 each and are delivered through a subscription service. Users scan a barcode on the meals and the device automatically detects how they should be cooked. The meals are then ready in 15 to 30 minutes.

The device can be controlled with a smartphone app that allows the user to regulate each individual heating element, something that Fiflis said makes Tovala fit into the landscape of the “smart” kitchen.

“We’re kind of bridging that gap between novelty and actually being functional,” Fiflis said. “So it’s not just a gimmick that you have in your kitchen, it’s a fully-functioning, really cool device that is able to do a lot of stuff as well.”

According to Fiflis, Tovala is different from other smart cookers because it can cook a variety of foods at the push of a button.

“People have described us as the Keurig for food. I would say that it’s a little bit of a misnomer, but the idea is that we’re trying

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The new $417M investment will be staffed with approximately 4,000 employees. “The new business campus will provide many outstanding benefits to our customers,” stated Mr. Takeshi Ebisu, President and CEO of Daikin North America. “The operational efficiencies we achieve will be reflected in the superb quality of our high-efficiency, energy-saving heating and cooling systems.

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11 to bring you a device that can cook you really high-quality meals in your own home,” he said.

The meals — which include entrees such as ginger pork and chicken farrotto — are designed by chefs, prepared in Tovala’s kitchens and then shipped directly to the customer.

Additionally, the team wants to make it so home chefs can put their own spin on meals they make with the device. They plan to make it so users can submit their own recipes and possibly have them redistributed at a large scale, then get paid royalties for their idea.

The idea, which primarily was Wilcox’s, came from his interest in helping people connect through food. He said he was inspired by a comment that his friend George Emmert once made while making dinner: “We should spend more time feeding one another. I think it would make the world a better place.”

“I agree with him,” Wilcox said. “We’re going to make it possible for anyone with an internet connection to create and share recipes that work with the Tovala smart-oven.”

The team launched a beta program with 25 functioning units, which Rabie said has been successful and has allowed them to get feedback from customers.

Though Tovala is still in its early stages, Rabie said assistance from several people and a strong vision have made the company successful so far.

“People in the startup community are very, very generous,” Rabie said. “We’ve probably had multiple hundreds of people play some role in where we are today . . . We feel like, between Chicago and Champaign, there are a lot of those people that are, if not financially invested, emotionally invested in our success.”

The team is currently working to produce a market-ready product that they hope to launch by the end of 2016. Until then, Rabie hopes they make the progress that will help them achieve Tovala’s ultimate goal.

“In five years, I hope we’ve changed the way people eat, to be honest. I hope we’ve made it easier for people to eat better,” he said.

“When I say easier, I mean less time, less hassle, less work; and when I say better, I mean more delicious, fresher and healthier.” emscott5@dailyillini.com

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Researchers study mechanical, structural properties of biofilms to assist in water purification

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The strengthening of the biofilms prevented its detachment when drinking water flows through.

Therefore, the release of pathogens into the drinking water would be reduced.

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