GE reinvents the dryer to disrupt the laundry industry

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By Matthew Griffin Connected Society 16th August 2016

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

GE shows us that you can reinvent even the most mundane products and use technology to disrupt your industry.

Heating laundry inside a standard 220 volt clothes dryer is a huge energy drain and most households have one but, in an example of how companies can innovate even the most mundane of products, one scientist just found a brilliant way to reinvent the dryer, making it simultaneously faster and more energy efficient to do the laundry.

Ultrasonic humidifiers use high speed vibrations to turn water into steam, so Ayyoub Momen, a staff scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, turned that method on fabric. It’s one of those ideas you picture bursting into the brain of an engineer who sits upright in the middle of the night, scribbling on as fast as he can on a piece of paper.

The result is a battery operated, ultrasonic piezoelectric system that takes fabric from soaking wet to bone dry in a fraction of the time of a traditional heat pump dryer like the one you have at home while using a mere fraction of the energy.

Video: A demonstration of the new technology

Currently, the prototype is a silver dollar sized transducer connected to a battery that dries a wet piece of fabric in about 20 seconds and neither the fabric nor the transducer get hot, like with a regular dryer.

The bad news though is that you can’t buy one at the Home Depot – yet but the good news is that General Electric has committed to make the new dryer and they’re partnering with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to bring it to market in about four years from now.

Wave goodbye to laundry Sunday’s and say hello to free time.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, multi-award winning Futurist and named Futurist of the Year 2024, has been described as a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath. One of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts Matthew is the 15 times author of the blockbuster "Codex of the Future" series, and is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer and mentor, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his 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, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, Dow, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

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