Tehrim Kaiser and her class mate Omar Ali invent a food storage system
Kashmir students devise innovative food storage system
Anantnag: “It is not an alternative to a refrigerator which can even freeze things but our model is good enough to help in storing perishables like cooked food, milk and vegetables for more than a day,” Kaiser and Ali said.
Two high school students in this South Kashmir town have made a ‘cool’ invention – a food storage system that does not need electricity, is environment friendly and costs just Rs 100.
Tehrim Kaiser, a ninth grade student, and her schoolmate Omar Ali have together put in place the system that works on the simple principle of ‘evaporation causes cooling’.
“It is not an alternative to a refrigerator which can even freeze things but our model is good enough to help in storing perishables like cooked food, milk and vegetables for more than a day,” Kaiser and Ali, who are students of Rosy Tots School here, said.
“In Kashmir, we don’t need to freeze things to keep them edible. The model we have put together can bring the temperature inside the cabin down by at least six degrees at the moment which is good enough to preserve the food items for more than one day,” she said.
The model of Kaiser and Ali was adjudged the best innovative work at the state level science festival held recently. Since it does not consume any energy, it also does not emit anything but heat and that too naturally.
The invention does not emit harmful cholo-floro-carbons which refrigerators running on electricity emit.
So what does this food storage system look like?
The exterior of the storage compartment and the interior of the inner compartment are covered in a cotton lining. The outermost jacket and innermost compartment are then filled with water which takes away the heat from the storage compartment, bringing down the inside temperature, she added.
The innovation has been tested by experts who have given it a thumbs up.
An official of the Kashmir University’s Science Instrumentation Centre (USIC) said besides being environment friendly, the invention also is very affordable. “The model prepared by the students does not cost more than Rs 100,” he said.
Another student of the school has developed a irrigation pump which uses the potential energy of water to lift water from low lying areas to high altitudes without using any fuel.
The irrigation pump, which has been named High Altitude Irrigation System, is a conveyor belt which pulls up bucketfuls of water to higher altitude using the energy generated by the fast moving water in a river or a stream.
“It is similar to the equipment used in rural areas of Punjab. The only difference is that instead of using a camel or a bull, the potential energy of the water is used to lift the water to higher altitudes,” Najmus Saqib Wani, a ninth grade student, who has devised this pump, said. The Automatic High Altitude Irrigation System was adjudged the best innovation at last year’s science festival held in Srinagar and Jammu, Gulzar Ahmad Khaki, principal of the school, said.
Khaki said since most of the students come from rural areas and poor families, they think of ways and means to improve their lives.
“These are not chance innovations … these students are a thinking lot who are guided by our Director, Academics, Bashir Ahmad Talib in seeking excellence in the field of science,” he added.
Asked if the school was thinking of applying for a patent for these innovations, Khaki said “at the moment, both the projects are just miniature models. We would like these students to improve upon their work so that they can be used for practical purposes.”
Khaki claimed that Talib had recently got a patent for developing an iron which operates on liquefied petroleum gas instead of electricity. “He holds the patent for this invention for 20 years.”
And that is not all. A fifth grade student of the school, Saim Dawood, has also claimed to have developed a chart on which you can test any mathematical formula. “There is an outer steel jacket which has pores in the upper half. Then there is the main storage compartment made of copper and another inner copper compartment which acts as the cooler,” Kaiser said.