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Honey bee publish details |
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CHIN - XVI |
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| Title |
Keeping home warm: Innovation from China |
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| Abstract |
These inventions depict how Chinese grassroots innovators and industrial innovators are trying to solve local problems frugally. The cooperation between SRISTI and Tianjin University of Finance and Economics (TUFE) has led to several major activities for increasing and supporting the grassroots innovation in China. Prof Liyan Zhang leads the effort at TUFE. Tianjin. |
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| Details |
Charcoal-Making Machine
Pang Dian Feng
Jinan, Shandong
Pang Dian Feng, (b. 1978) is the promoter and general manager of Dian Feng New Energy Technology Co. Ltd. in the Shandong province of China. He has only obtained primary school education, but the story of the rise of this innovative factory worker is inspirational. He started working at the age of 16 and has worked in Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong. He acquired knowledge of machinery as part of his job and soon developed an inclination for innovation. His innovations improved his efficiency at work, which was perceived as a threat by other workers. His work was often obstructed, and difficulties were created for him at workplace. This made him job-hop from one industry to another, picking up several skills, which laid the foundation for his latter-day success.
In 1999, when children in his neighbourhood were bursting fire-crackers, a firecracker landed on a straw stack of his newly constructed house and completely burnt it down. He decided to put the straw waste to good use and turn it into something valuable. By 2006, he had started producing charcoal using his innovative charcoal-making machine. Four tons of straw can be compressed to produce one ton of charcoal using this machine, while three tons of timber is required to produce one ton of charcoal. Pang says that the cost of stalks and straw is
quite low as compared to that of timber. One ton of timber costs more than 300 yuan (about $48 or 3,000 INR). Moreover, it takes several days for timber to burn and turn into charcoal, whereas it requires only one hour for the straws and stalks to turn into charcoal! Thus, the cost of producing one ton of charcoal from stalks and straw is much lower than the cost of producing charcoal from timber.
Moreover, this machine can also compress stalks of cotton, corn, sesame, broomcorn, sunflower, tomatoes and other such crops. It can also compress small branches and bark of trees into charcoal. However the stalks and straws of wheat and rice cannot be used for this purpose, as they are hollow. After the success of his machine, Pang established his company in 2007. He routinely gets orders from around China and sometimes even outside the country.
Assembled Environment-friendly Insulated Home
Li Yongfeng
Suihua, Heilongjiang Province
Li Yongfeng is the chairman of the Yongfeng Industrial Co. Ltd in Anda, Heilongjiang Province. Under the Tenth Five-Year Plan, China’s National Ministry of Construction forbade the production of clay bricks. This prompted him to carry out research on energy-saving building materials. One day he came across certain statistics, which stated that China’s annual consumption of clay was more than 10 billion cubic metres, which approximately translates to ruining about 307 million square metres of farmland. Furthermore, the coal consumption of the country reported to be over 70 million tonnes!
Equipped with this new information, he developed a reinforced, insulated assembled concrete house structure, made from corn stalks, slag and other industrial and agricultural wastes. He won a national patent for this innovation in 2003.
These environment-friendly reinforced sheets can be used to assemble homes, offices, factories, schools, hotels and other such buildings. The biggest advantage of this structure is that it is insulated, durable, water-proof and shock absorbent. An entire building can be constructed without the use of a single brick! It can also be reused by dismantling it with the help of a crane. This environmental friendly structure not only avoids the usage of bricks, but also protects the top soil of cultivable land, reduces stockpiling of industrial waste, thus making more land and resources available to society.
Comparative figures show that for a brick house spread out in 100 square metres, this eco-structure saves construction costs by 10 per cent, reduces the construction time by half, saves 100 cubic metres of soil and conserves 20 tons of water, which would otherwise have been used for construction. In winters, it can maintain a temperature of about 16 degrees Celsius, thereby saving about three tonnes of coal used for heating. As per the Provincial Engineering Quality Inspection Centre, the insulation effect is equivalent to a 1.323 metres-thick brick wall. Thus, it has exceeded the national energy-efficiency standards by more than double.
The technology has grabbed the attention of the concerned department in the Heilongjiang province.
The Provincial Finance Office and the Reforms Department have offered Yongfeng 2.5 thousand yuan and 1.5 thousand yuan respectively and have extended their support for the promotion and development of this project. Apart from Anda, this technology has also been widely used in Daqing, Zhaozhou, Zhaodong and other places with a total construction of over 50,000 square metres, resulting in savings of about 50,000 cubic metres of clay, 1500 tons of coal and 10,000 tonnes of water.
Li says that he would like to study newer energy-saving methods so as to save more energy and resources for the country and enable people to live in warmer and energy efficient houses.
Automotive Driving Flange Connecting Device
Tian Ge
Enshi, Hubei
Tian Ge is a car mechanic from Huaping town, Jianshi County in the Hubei province. In 1986, Tian was admitted to Hubei Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture Transportation Technology School where he majored in vehicle repair. Having survived a car accident caused by brake failure, prior to his college entrance examination, Tian swore that irrespective of the cost, he would develop a safe and reliable car!
He gave up the chance to work in the County Transportation Bureau after his graduation and worked in a factory. He learned skills from other workers and by himself. In 1996, the factory went bankrupt and Tian began to work in another factory set up by his relative.
In April 1998, while repairing vehicles at a bus company in the Enshi city, he found that the nuts and bolts of the car drive flange locks had become loose and could not securely lock. After 20 days of continuous pondering on the problem, he fixed it by welding the inner fovea. He found that the flange nuts had not loosened for six months. Encouraged by this, he further improved upon the inner fovea. He then secured the flange nuts through a sleeve-shaped inner hole of the universal joint disk, a connecting flange and a universal joint flange. The set up not only became easy to disassemble and maintain, but the life of drive shaft also increased by about two times.
In May 1999, Tian obtained a national patent for his automotive driving flange connective device.
Built-in Charging Electric Meter
Gong Yulin
Yichang, Hubei
After completing his studies in a senior high school, Gong Yulin returned to his hometown and set up an appliance repairs shop. Gong was proficient at repairing watches and clocks and his shop provided the much-needed convenience of repairs to the other surrounding villages too.In the rural mountainous regions, the electric meters for the houses in
that area are installed together on a pole on the outskirts of the village. The employees from the electricity department have to walk a long way
and climb up and down the poles numerous times to collect the data of electric consumption for each household.
Gong thought of devising a new type of meter to solve this problem. After a lot of perseverance and many failed attempts, he finally succeeded in devising a new meter and obtained a patent for the utility model from the State Intellectual Property Office of China. This new, smart meter is similar to the traditional electric meters, but it has an additional built-in controller chip. This digital chip receives and transmits data from the electric meters to any mobile phone or computer through the internet making long-distance control of the electric meters possible. The billing and payment can also be done through the Internet.
This can save a lot of time, energy and effort on the part of the electricity department if it is popularised. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee 25(1) 18-19, 2014 |
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