Innovación en educación

Otra excelente presentación en TED sobre innovación en educación a partir de ejemplos traídos del Tercer Mundo.

De paso, y porque viene a cuento, las palabras de Susan Hockfield, cuando fue nombrada Presidente del Massachussets Institute of Technology Aquí

I want MIT to be the dream of every child who wants to make the world a better place. And also the dream of every engineer, scientist, scholar, and artist who draws inspiration from the idea of working in a hotbed of innovation, in service to humanity.

Citada por Don Sadoway en una clase sobre cómo enseñar Química (vía Kedrosky). Está inventando baterías a gran escala a base de líquidos. (léanse los comments porque en ellos se trata de adivinar qué metales utiliza Sadoway – los mantiene ocultos porque espera obtener una patente, claro).

The idea is to build an entirely new kind of battery, whose key components would be kept at high temperature so that they would stay entirely in liquid form. The experimental devices currently being tested in Sadoway’s lab work in a way that’s never been attempted in batteries before…The basic principle is to place three layers of liquid inside a container: Two different metal alloys, and one layer of a salt. The three materials are chosen so that they have different densities that allow them to separate naturally into three distinct layers, with the salt in the middle separating the two metal layers —like novelty drinks with different layers.

The energy is stored in the liquid metals that want to react with one another but can do so only by transferring ions — electrically charged atoms of one of the metals — across the electrolyte, which results in the flow of electric current out of the battery. When the battery is being charged, some ions migrate through the insulating salt layer to collect at one of the terminals. Then, when the power is being drained from the battery, those ions migrate back through the salt and collect at the opposite terminal.

The whole device is kept at a high temperature, around 700 degrees Celsius, so that the layers remain molten. In the small devices being tested in the lab, maintaining this temperature requires an outside heater, but Sadoway says that in the full-scale version, the electrical current being pumped into, or out of, the battery will be sufficient to maintain that temperature without any outside heat source.

Si la cosa funciona, será posible aprovechar la energía de fuentes renovables. Ahora, lo que se hace, es utilizar la que sobra de los molinos de viento en subir agua a lo alto de la presa durante la noche para soltarla durante el día, que es cuando se necesita más electricidad. Y poco más. A menudo, si hace mucho viento durante la noche o el fin de semana, parte de la energía producida por los molinos de viento no puede ser aprovechada. Siempre he pensado que por qué no se utiliza este sobrante en las plantas desalinizadoras que, al parecer, consumen mucha electricidad. Supongo que habrá pegas.

Lo que cuenta sobre Alessandro Volta está muy bien (según Sadoway el primer profesor que inventó algo desde la Universidad).