Development Research is, for Ecosphere Technologies, the key to quality and performance.
Several programmes are actually in progress, whether it’s for "details" (How to design door handles that are nearly impossible to vandalise and as ergonomic as possible) or much more "fundamental" questions (How to avoid "struvite" formation, precipite made by urine as it’s PH levels, acid to start with, become basic, precipite which tends to block the pipes).
More precisely, the Development Research programme concentrates mainly on:
- The use of wind and sun to optimize the the toilet cabin’s ventilation :
Thus, some of the parts of the “toilet cabin” are currently being tested, some in a « wind tunnel » and some in a more “natural environment”.
- The optimisation of the earthworm’s environment in terms of temperature (testing in the monutains at altitudes of 1400 to 2800 metres, and also testing overseas), humidity, protection from predators, etc….
- The optimisation of luminous fly traps, with the knowledge that flies can sense wave-lengths situated in the visible spectre or the ultra violet spectre whether in flight or at a stand-still.
- The adaptation of a counting device to measure the use of the toilets in relation not only to the periods of the year but also the specific days and times.
- The development of a domestic earthworm composting dry toilet, a model conceived with the possibility to be installed indoors.
Hence, for Ecosphere Technologies today, dry toilets are a permanent source of research, an obsessive questioning, a constant search to make them more efficient while keeping them simple. But ‘simplifying’ is something very hard to do. Improving the devices and making them more efficient, naturally leads to making them more complex. Hence, there are patented dry toilets that are extremely complicated. But after this work of making them more complex comes the work of re-simplifying them, which aims to conserve the improvements all while optimising the benefits. This is the price of quality and quality is what drives us.
