Not too long ago, Dean Kamen came to Bentley as part of a panel to speak about the role of business in making the world a better place. As someone who got a lot out of FIRST, despite a roster of big-name executives, it was Dean Kamen that I was most excited about seeing.

He mentioned that he’d invented “two boxes” that could help the developing world, but that the fixed costs of production were too prohibitive; without a ‘mass market’ for them, he couldn’t move beyond prototypes.

The first box, he explained, had two hoses. You fed liquid into the first, and pure water came out the second. (Not water with most contaminants removed, but 100% pure water: he told us that it met the standards for water used in injections.)

The second box would burn anything flammable and generate electricity. He talked about how, in a remote village, it led to a mini-economy: someone ran the machine, someone else provided them with manure, and someone else resold the electricity.

I think there are plenty of applications for both of these, though. Imagine:

• RVs and boats have two tanks: one for potable water to drink / shower in, and one to collect ‘waste’ water. You, of course, have to work on emptying the waste container often, and on filling the potable water one. With Box #1, you could get potable water out of waste water, reducing how often you have to fill/empty the tanks.
• We’ve gone through a bunch of old junk here, and I’ve been working on shredding boxes of old financial documents before we throw them out. How handy would it be to take them into the back yard, throw them into Box #2 to be incinerated, and get a little break on our electric bill in the process?
• I’d imagine that human waste could be flammable, at least after water was extracted from it. (But I’ve never tried?) Box #2 might have its place on an RV.
  • And, if that works, why not build an awesome Port-a-Potty? You could have a sink with clean water for hand-washing, and electricity to power a fan / heat / air freshener. And you wouldn’t have to empty any tanks.
• Do you have any idea how many places in the world don’t have clean water? It’s not a problem that only exists in a couple little ghettos. Even though you and I have an endless of clean water when we turn on our faucet, an enormous part of the world doesn’t. The machines might be expensive, but I bet entrepreneurs would love to sell clean water.
• We have a Brita water filter at school, so that we don’t have to drink tap water. Imagine if we had a building-wide machine that would take ‘tap water’ into the building and make the water coming out of all the faucets pure. (Well, I suppose you’d have to clean out the pipes first, but I digress.)
• We could cut down on our water usage, by ‘reusing’ water. Feed the pipe going to the septic system back into the machine. (And what doesn’t become water might be able to be burned to generate electricity.) Surely there’s some loss, but it could at least reduce your use on the water supply. Those with wells wouldn’t have to worry as much about running out, and those who had town water could see a savings in their bills.

I’m convinced that both of these machines could be pretty popular if they ever went into mass-production.