Extracting water from ambient air and detecting water pollution through internet-connected mollusks are just some of the numerous innovations to combat climate change that garnered significant interest at the Las Vegas Electronics Expo, according to a report by the French News Agency.
While 2023 was the hottest year on record, tech companies presented possible solutions to this major crisis during the Las Vegas expo, which concluded its activities on Friday, January 12, 2024.
Water-Saturated Air
Genesis Systems introduced the “WaterCube,” a unit the size of an air conditioner that can extract drinking water from the surrounding air.
David Stuckenberg, who founded the company with his wife Shannon, says, “Our primary goal is to sustainably respond to the global shortage of drinking water.”
The businessman points out that thousands of trillions of tons of water are present in the air all over the planet.
Due to global warming, the amount of water vapor produced by the evaporation of liquid water bodies on the Earth’s surface is expected to increase in the atmosphere.
Therefore, Genesis Systems, like other companies in this sector, seeks to extract this water found in the air to provide water to residents of arid regions. However, each device of this type is priced at no less than $19,000.
David Stuckenberg explains that “once the system is connected to your home, you can do away with the city’s water network.”
His Florida-based company is also looking to make carbon removal from the air one of the functions of its devices, which is another fundamental operation in the fight against climate change. The carbon capture technique requires drying the air, a process already carried out by the “WaterCube,” according to the company’s president.
Shellfish Indicating Pollution
Other companies, such as the French startup Moluscan, took advantage of the Las Vegas expo to showcase their innovations aimed at protecting the environment from future degradation.
By connecting mussels and clams to electrodes, the “Moluscan Eye” technology aims to monitor water pollution through the behavior of mollusks, in a simpler and faster way than analyzing water samples.
These connected shellfish are already deployed in various locations around the world from the Arctic to Tahiti and share their water quality analyses with companies or authorities, explains Ludovic Keno, the co-founder of Moluscan.
In the field of water pollution as well, the company Mater—backed by Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher—introduced a filtration technology to capture microplastics emitted from washing machines into the sewage system.
In the corridors of the Las Vegas expo, other companies promoted the use of recycled or sustainable materials to combat global warming, and highlighted energy-efficient devices or even more efficient batteries.
The French auto supplier Forvia explained how it used hemp, wood, and even pineapple in its innovations.
The American startup Ambiie Photonics presented an indoor solar panel capable of generating energy from indoor lighting, thereby claiming to eliminate the use of batteries in many electronic devices.
Ambiie’s general manager, Bets Marshall, says, “Connected electronic devices require constant power, which often comes from disposable or rechargeable batteries.”
