MeKong Green Tech 2012 2^nd Place Winner, GREENGUARD Winner

Update

Mekong Green Tech is now Lac Hong Gasifiers
MeKong Green Tech is now known as Lac Hong Gasifiers. The name derives from the Lac bird, a symbol of ancient Vietnamese people. Coming up with a name was a fun excuse to dig into Vietnamese mythology. More info on this when we unveil the new logo.

Emissions Testing and Burner Improvements
Last week the entire team was out in Sa Dec, collecting emissions samples from nearby brick kilns while testing a new burner for the system.   The emissions samples are now on their way back to Georgia Tech for analysis while samples of our rice husk biochar are being sent to UC Boulder for characterization. 

While in the field, we also got to test our first iteration of the burner design. The test rig worked better than expected: we were able to tune the flame into a beautiful blue ball. The results from this testing bring us close to version 1.0. Check out a video of the burner in action here. The red sparks are just for show. During clean operation the flame is much more boring!

NCIIA Grant
We were delighted to find out in late July that the team had won a grant from the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Alliance (NCIIA) to help in commercialization of the system. Besides funding further tinkering, this grant allows us to stay connected with Georgia Tech- something the whole team is excited about. This Fall, two mechanical engineering students will be helping us test and refine future revisions to the burner assembly.  

Addition of a new team member
A few weeks ago we welcomed Dang Thai onto the team.  Danny is a current GT student and will be spending some months with us as part of a work abroad assignment.  As a Vietnamese-American, his perspective and language skills have already been an asset to the project. We're glad to have him on board, even if it means being encouraged to eat balut.


And finally, we received a scholarship to attend the SOCAP social investing conference in San Fransisco the 1st week of October. 

                                                                         Cardiam Patent Update

The co-inventors for this plan, Professor Ku and Professor Forest sent in the application 13/632,953 for a United States Patent for the research entitled "Microfluidic system for optical measurement of platelet aggregation".  The application was made possible through the legal services award from the GT BPC and carried out by Robert Madayag of Troutman-Sanders.