Posts Tagged: "energy conservation"

Evo of Tech: B. The insulated gate bipolar transistor has improved U.S. electrical efficiency by 40 percent

Sunday, November 6th marks the 26th anniversary of the first U.S. patent issued to Baliga for which he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. U.S. Patent No. 4969028, which is titled Gate Enhanced Rectifier. It claimed a gate-controlled semiconductor power device having a body of semiconductor material with regions of opposing types of conductivity forming a p-n junction, two power electrodes disposed in ohmic contact with different regions of the semiconductor material, an insulated gate electrode disposed on a surface to control the conduction of opposite type conductivity carriers in a channel to either induce an opposite conductivity or repress the channel’s conductivity. The resulting semiconductor device achieves both forward and reverse blocking capability and can be switched on and off with a low power requirement.

Reinventing our Climate Future

On Wednesday, June 29th, the United States Patent and Trademark Office hosted a panel titled Innovation to Power the Nation (and the World): Reinventing our Climate Future. This panel featured several important players involved in climate change within the United States. USPTO Director Michelle Lee delivered the keynote address while the panel was moderated by Amy Harder of the Wall Street Journal, who posed interesting and through provoking questions to the panelists. The panel comprised, Dr. Kristina Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of Cube Hydro Partners, Dr. Bantval Jayant Baliga, Director of the Power Semiconductor Research Center at North Carolina State University, Bob Perciasepe, President of the Center or Climate Change and Energy Solutions, and Nathan Hurst, Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer at Hewlett Packard, Inc.

Nobel Prize Innovation: Lighting the World with Blue LEDs

With the advent of blue LED lighting, it is now possible to create white light devices by combining blue light with red and green. As the Nobel Foundation points out in their background report on the 2014 physics laureates, “Incandescent light bulbs had lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps. The fact that LEDs could supplant all incandescents and fluorescents in lighting applications alone has major implications for energy efficiency in our world. In an LED bulb, about half of the electricity charging the diode is converted into light, whereas incandescent bulbs only convert about four percent of their charge into light.

Whirlpool Keeps Improving Tech Behind Household Appliances

We start off by looking at a patent application that would protect a system that could improve energy efficiency overall for appliances within a home. This type of smart metering system would take into account environmental factors, like temperature, that could affect the functioning ability of an appliance. Also, we saw some inventions related to better gas pressure calibration for cooking ranges, as well as one patent application describing a dishwasher capable of producing ozone gas for increased sanitation. In our coverage of Whirlpool’s recent additions to its patent portfolio, we noticed a couple of intriguing technologies related to liquid soap dispensers for washing appliances, like dishwashers and laundry machines. An extendable guide for dispensing ice into cups is protected by another patent we discuss. We also take a look at an improved system of adjusting cycle operations in a laundry tumbling appliance in response to a change in load density.

Siemens Seeks Patent on Mobile Privacy System for Accessing Cloud Computing Resources

Many of these patent references reviewed this week show us Siemens involvement with electrical and Internet systems on all levels, from personal to industrial. For example, one patent application would protect a floating sensor capable of detecting foam formation in industrial liquid production, a symptom of process issues. An issued patent, with an extremely narrow Claim 1, protects a system of analyzing industrial facility processes to identify energy cost savings. On an individual level, one patent application describes a system of creating anonymity among mobile device owners using cloud application resources. Siemens is also involved in medical technology upgrades that aid various bodily systems. One patent application filed with the USPTO would protect a system of training the hearing impaired to better understand speech, even when amplification affects the signal. Finally, we feature one last patent application that discusses a system of measuring heart activity non-invasively.