Genius Lonnie Johnson

The Inventor of the SuperSoaker is an African-American NASA Scientist named Lonnie Johnson whose top three inventions are the remote controlled robot he built in 1968 in high school, the memory-protected circuitry for the Galileo and the Super Soaker.

But did you know the SuperSoaker was a side invention that evolved from the water pumps he was creating for a new way to manufacture electricity?

The Johnson Thermo-Electrochemical Converter System, or JTEC, has no moving parts. “It uses temperature differences to create pressure gradients,” says Paul Werbos, program director at the National Science Foundation, which has provided funding for JTEC. “Instead of using those pressure gradients to move an axle or wheel, he’s using them to force ions through a membrane. It’s a totally new way of generating electricity from heat.”

In the JTEC, hydrogen circulates between two fuel cell–like membrane-electrode assemblies. Unlike a fuel cell, however, the JTEC is a closed system—it doesn’t need new supplies of hydrogen. One assembly is coupled to a heat source (such as concentrated sunlight), and the other to a heat sink (ambient air).

Once the cycle is started by an electrical jolt, the unit starts producing a current. Heat in, electricity out. Johnson’s concept may take years to commercialize—but it has the potential to convert heat to electricity at double the efficiency of today’s best technology. The JTEC “could have widespread impact,” says Karl Littau, a materials chemist at the Palo Alto Research Center. “You look at it and say, ‘Wow, why didn’t someone think of this before?’"

Somebody invest more into this man!

I'm so glad to have found these links. I watched a documentary about Lonnie Johnson years ago and he is just so impressive!