Development
Current research focuses on cost reduction using reactions without odor or fumes. One heat source in development uses air-activation reactions that utilize oxidation of common metals like iron or zinc. Another uses solid fuel energy storage technology. The heating element contains aluminum and silica, two benign materials, which in an intimately mixed powdered state can undergo a chemical reaction to give off a large amount of heat. The small heater unit is formulated to give high utilization of the chemical energy content and generates 720 calories of heat per gram. To view a demonstration of the aluminum/silica self-heating "Self-Heating Coffee Demonstration" on YouTube Neither technology is commercially available.
Read more about this topic: Self-heating Food Packaging, Heating Methods
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“I’ve always been impressed by the different paths babies take in their physical development on the way to walking. It’s rare to see a behavior that starts out with such wide natural variation, yet becomes so uniform after only a few months.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“For decades child development experts have erroneously directed parents to sing with one voice, a unison chorus of values, politics, disciplinary and loving styles. But duets have greater harmonic possibilities and are more interesting to listen to, so long as cacophony or dissonance remains at acceptable levels.”
—Kyle D. Pruett (20th century)
“To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)