Finalists competed on Sept. 15 in the second annual PSU Cleantech Challenge, a competition designed for students and professors to develop environmentally sound products.
Andrew Thorsvik, a graduate student of engineering and technology marketing, and his brother Jonathan Thorsvik won first place for their lead and acid-free ThorVolt car battery. The Thorsvik brothers’ design features supercapacitor and lithium-ion technologies. They were awarded a $10,000 grand prize for their winning design.
The Thorsvik brothers found inspiration for the ThorVolt battery while repairing Jonathan’s old van.
“Current batteries are composed of lead and acid. We found that his battery had leaked and it had rusted out where it leaked,” Andrew said. “We knew it needed to be replaced, [but] if it’s not recycled properly, you end up having that contaminating a lot of municipal waste and you have it entering the water stream. That’s when we started looking around and came up with the idea of using supercapacitors.”
The Thorsvik brothers purchased a kit to build a 3D printer, which they used to print the cases for their battery design.
“We looked into having professionally manufactured cases for us, and we found the cost to be high,” Andrew said. “So that’s when we said, ‘Hey, we can buy a [do-it-yourself] 3D printer kit’ and it saved us money and allowed us to change things as we go.
“The actual product is printed circuit boards and other components that we soldered together,” he added.
By the end of the competition, the Thorsvik brothers had four working prototypes, some of which were used in their own cars over the summer.
“Without the Cleantech Challenge we wouldn’t be where we are now. It provided the funding, it provided the motivation and it really helped us identify the market,” Andrew said.
Other finalists in the competition received benefits as well. The second place winner, Alex Bigazzi, was awarded $5,000 for Sensing Pollution Exposure by Community, a device that uses a smart phone app to record levels of air pollutants.
“Any of the challenge finalists who didn’t win [have] been offered a space at the Portland Business Accelerator to continue working on their ideas. It’s a really supportive community for entrepreneurs who are trying to figure out business plans,” said Erin Flynn, associate vice president of Strategic Partnerships at PSU.
“We’re hoping to roll out the program statewide so that more universities can be involved in it. We need as many good ideas as we can get in this country, so let’s not limit this to [PSU],” Flynn said.
“We are living in a world right now that is so resource constrained and we have so many social, environmental and economic challenges,” Flynn said. “It’s the next generation of young people who are going to both inherit these problems and they’re going to have to solve these problems. But people need incentive to solve problems.”
Andrew expressed the importance of responsible design and production when developing new products.
“When it comes to manufacturing, we look at a product and we say, ‘We’re going to make, hopefully, a million of these.’ If you haven’t gone through that thought process: How does it cradle a grave? When does it come back around? Do we recycle it? Do we put it in a landfill?” Andrew said. “Anytime you multiply anything by a million, you need to consider those things. It’s important to be responsible to your community and the world in that way.”