ORNL's new super fast ultrasonic dryer uses 70 percent less energy

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By Matthew Griffin Earth and Energy 7th February 2018

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Tumble dryers account for more than 4 percent of the world’s energy consumption, so cutting that figure by 70 percent could be a big deal.

Forget heat, drying laundry in the future is all about cranking up the volume. At least, that’s how the folks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where researchers have built an ultrasonic clothes dryer that uses far less energy than conventional dryers see it.

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All of us know, especially the bill payers among you, that most clothes dryers are astonishingly energy hungry and that’s backed up by a 2014 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council that found a typical household dryer uses as much energy over the course of a year as your refrigerator, dishwasher, and clothes washer combined, ouch, and that dryers account for as much as 4 percent of all US domestic energy consumption, double ouch. And that didn’t escape the attention of ORNL’s Ayyoub Momen.

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The result, of years of research, is ORNL’s new clothes dryer whose drum is lined with piezoelectric ultrasound transducers that blast laundry with high frequency sound rather than heat.

The teams full sized prototype works by using ultrasound to vibrate small water droplets out of the clothes, forming a fine mist which is then driven to the edge of the drum where it can be siphoned off, in much the same way it would happen in a regular dryer, and during tests the teams new dryer dried clothes in 20 minutes rather than the usual 50 and using over 70 percent less energy that a regular dryer.

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The news, for bill payers anyway, gets even better though, this isn’t just idle research. The project was carried out in collaboration with GE who are now planning to incorporate the technology into their range of flat dryers and, at some point in the future, their regular drum dryers. So dim the lights, turn on the dryer and bask in the glory of saving money.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.