Nimbus is a washing machine that uses carbon dioxide as a solvent instead of water. It was designed for pre-industrial use, such as that found in hotels and laundries, and saves up to 300 liters of water per wash. It is a project created by two UNC graduates and which participates in the Innovar 2012 National Innovation Contest.
While studying Theory and Method, one of the most important subjects for those who study Industrial Design at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the National University of Córdoba, Nicolás Araya and Nicolás Vuksanovic, today young industrial designers, thought of developing a project that could be useful to one of the world’s main ecological problems: the scarcity of drinking water.
“We wanted to create a product that would generate significant savings and when we began to investigate we saw that in homes a washing machine can use up to 100 liters of water per wash cycle,” Araya told EcoNegocios.
The young people got down to work and sniffed around until they found that carbon dioxide (CO2) -which is commonly used in chemical processes to separate the oil from the seeds- also served to dry clean.
“”We saw that there were some experiences in Europe and we decided to create a home washing machine with this washing system””, he adds.
But they soon realized that the costs did not close for the project to prosper on a domestic scale and that CO2 alone did not remove all the dirt. For this reason, together with a chemical engineer, they developed a co-solvent (biodegradable detergent) and focused the development on a pre-industrial scale washing machine, with a drum with a capacity of 20 kilos – like the ones used by hotels or laundries – and that spends about 300 liters of water per cycle.
This is how Nimbus was born, a washing machine that washes without water.
“CO2 is not a petroleum-derived solvent, so it does not pollute and is renewable. In addition, the CO2 is recovered after each washing cycle by means of a filter system that purifies it”, Araya notes.
According to research, a load of CO2 –NdR: in Córdoba there are companies that sell it- could last at least three months and is cheaper than using usual solvents.
The design of the UNC students was selected to participate in the Innovar 2012 National Innovation Contest that is exhibited in Tecnópolis by the Ministry of Science and Technology.