Produced in collaboration with the Designers Accord in 2011, our Sustainability in 7 video series has aged quite well, if we say so ourselves. Perhaps the best example is Janine Benyus's short primer on biomimicry, in which the biologist, innovation consultant and author explains how the natural world can inspire and inform design.
Whether or not he's seen the video, Jeabyun Yeon definitely gets it: His Triton Oxygen Respirator concept was clearly inspired by fish. Just think of all the things we could accomplish if we somehow could sprout gills and swim great lengths without worrying about breathing?
We obtain many things from ocean. It becomes a great vacation spot and provides us with many resources. However, many difficulties are involved in using them, among which the most fundamental difficulty is breathing. To use skin scuba equipment, we must learn very complicated procedures. In addition, there are people that cannot enjoy them from being afraid to breathe under water. I've come up with a future product that can solve these difficulties.
Triton is made up of two main parts—a mouthpiece and two appendages that act jointly as the "gills" of the wearer. The user engages the gills simply by biting on the mouthpiece, activating a flow of compressed oxygen extracted from the water. Yeon, a student at the Samsung Art And Design Institute, notes that a fellow Korean has developed a filter that is too fine for H2O to pass through but will allow (smaller) oxygen molecules to do so.
The filtered oxygen is compressed into a small, powerful micro-compressor that is powered by a micro battery and stores it in a tank. "The micro battery is a next-generation technology with a size 30 times smaller than current battery that can quickly charge 1,000 times faster," Yeon says on his website, sans citation.
Given the ambiguity around these two crucial technologies, it remains to be seen as to whether or not the Triton will eventually allow us to finally expand our exploration of the water world around us. Meanwhile, the concept overlooks other obstacles besides respiration, such as the time it takes for an earthbound creature to resurface. When a person comes up after a deep dive, the body needs to decompress properly—the pressure inside of your body needs to equalize with the levels outside of your body, lest you risk getting the bends.
Before you get your hopes up and start planning your ocean floor world tour, consider this: The scuba diver that took on the world record deepest dive got down his deepest point of 1,800 feet in ten minutes. It took him eight hours and 49 minutes to resurface. So if you're looking to go for a deep dive with a mask like Triton in the future, you might need to cancel your dinner plans.
Here, if you were too lazy to click the link at the top, is Janine Benyus on biomimicry:
Via PSFK
Erika is the editorial assistant at Core77. When she isn't covering design, you can find her writing about music, food, and healthy living habits. But mostly music. She also has a strong affinity for hedgehogs, bowling, and bands with goofy names.
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There's Something Fishy About the Triton Oxygen Respirator
As an engineer/Diver since 73, I would LOVE one of these units....except they are like one of my other wants...perpetual motion machine. Some people have gone into all sorts of analysis showing how many liters of this or that. But there is no reason to do that. When you breathe underwater you take in ONE FULL lung full of water per breath. This device would have to produce that for every breath since it does not have any way to save any of your exhale. You breathe about once every 4 seconds. How much water passes over those motorcycle handles in 4 seconds....close enough for extraction mind you? Next, you have to overcome the affinity of the gases to water...as in negative pressure creation. Your lungs will have to work damn hard for that and you will use far more O2 than you "create". Anyone who dives can tell you a hard draw on regulator will exhaust you rapidly. While the combination of these issues dooms success FOREVER, EACH one does as well. Not hough water contact, not enough O2 concentration to make a difference, not enough gas mass to fill the lungs, ...... TOTAL FRAUD
respirators have great importance as you use them as a critical purpose of inhaling, so you must not compromise on its quality. WeeTect full face respirator visor (WFFRV) also names respirator face shield which is used in a full face respirator. It is an injection molding optical class 1 visor complaint with CE standard with anti fog coating and hard coating. http://bit.ly/20OKqqk
Total bunk.
First, make something giant and simple that works.
Second, make it smaller and more efficient. Raise price.
Third, make it smaller and more efficient. Raise price even more.
Finally, make it more expensive and better looking.
It's a funny concept however you will still need to get rid of all the carbondioxides you will build up if you re-use the same volume of air all the time.. and below certain depths the volume of air will be uncomfortably small for you to breath.
"As with any artificial gill using dissolved oxygen, air from a huge volume[quantify] of seawater would have to be extracted to provide enough for breathing, requiring large amounts of power for pumping. Therefore, a key issue remaining is battery life. Currently, a 1-kg battery would only last for one hour."
"30 times smaller than current battery that can quickly charge 1,000 times faster" == "magic."
Its projects like these that make me dislike design concepts. Its easy to design "innovative" products when you assume nonexistent scientific breakthroughs or violate the laws of physics.