SUPER CLEANING BRUSH BALLS BY NUS ALUMNUS

- by Lo Tien Yen

You may say that Mr Alex Chow’s business is a “bouncing” success. The NUS alumnus who graduated in Civil Engineering in 1986, established the company HVS Engineering Pte Ltd last year to market an automatic cleaning system for cleaning tubes of heat transfer equipment which involves the use of super bouncy balls – along with an energy-saving and monitoring device.

BOUNCING INNOVATION: Mr Alex Chow demonstrating how those super balls work.

Said Mr Chow: “Imagine tiny elastic cleaning brush devices circulating constantly and consistently along your artery. This way, fat would not be able to deposit on the inner surface. This is the very principle of how HVS keeps the tubes clean.”

HVS stands for Hydro-active VeloBall System and as its name suggested, employs the use of special balls (some have spikes, like brushes). The built-in geometrical configurations of these balls bounce and rotate with great velocity – constantly cleaning up dirt and chemical built-up once introduced into the tubes. They move on their own accord without the need for additional energy, leading to savings between 5 to 30 per cent.

Currently, unchoking and cleaning tubes are done manually which requires the shut-down of the chiller system. With HVS, this will not be necessary.

Mr Chow won the inaugural Singapore Environment Council (SEC)-Senoko Power Green Innovations Award 2005. Earlier last year, he was also a recipient of the EDB’s Startup Enterprise Development Scheme (SEEDS).

His clients include major offices and hotels, hospitals, international airports, ocean liners as well as semiconductor and engineering plants. Middle East’s oil and gas industry is also in the pipeline. In preparation for entering the oil and gas industry which is most challenging technically, Mr Chow said he is looking for partners to develop a new elastic material which can operate in an oil-based environment and withstand a temperature of at least 350 degrees Centigrade. HVS Engineering Pte Ltd is also working with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to keep abreast with the latest technology and market trends.

SPECIAL KEYBOARD FOR THE DISABLED

NUS mechanical engineering team led by Professor Andrew Nee and Associate Professor Ong Soh Khim, has won the Samsung DigitAll Hope 2005 for their project Augmented Reality Assistive Keyboard. They share the prize, grant of US$500,000 with 11 other winners.

SAMSUNG WINNER: Clockwise from left: Ms Zhang Jie, NUS researcher; Mr Sang-Jin Park, Regional CEO and President, Samsung Asia; Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community, Youth and Sports and Second Minister for Trade and Industry; Associate Professor Ong Soh Khim, NUS and Ms Shen Yan, NUS researcher.

The team has invented a virtual keyboard which enables people with physical or mental disabilities to operate the computer and household appliances as well as to communicate via the Internet. “With Samsung DigitAll Hope’s funding, we can customise the Augmented Reality Assistive Keyboard for different applications. We envision the project to be useful to individuals with disabilities to carry out their daily living tasks and we hope to bring it to users in other countries as a useful assistive tool,” said Associate Professor Ong who is also a Nominated Member of Parliament.