What I learned building the EcoTube

It’s funny how life works. My biggest success feels like my biggest failure. 

I’m going to tell you a story of my ‘claim to fame’. It's the reason I have a Wikipedia article, received international attention as a teenager, and made millions in my 20s. And I’m here to tell you everything that went wrong.

For context, when I was 13 I invented the EcoTube, a device that reduces carbon dioxide emissions from cars using photosynthesis of algae. Through a long and complicated process of trying to turn a genuinely novel science fair project into a commercial product, I learned a lot about product dynamics and overcoming technical challenges using first principles. 

The Ecotube leveraged algae photosynthesis to reduce a small portion of the carbon dioxide emissions from the car. The byproducts of combustion are particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, water vapor and hydrocarbons. After the combustion engine, these byproducts go through the catalytic converter, muffler, and exhaust pipe. Specifically, the catalytic converter converts most hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxide into carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor which is then released from the exhaust pipe. 

On the contrary, photosynthesis in plants converts carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen. The process of photosynthesis uses sunlight as a source of energy for the reaction to occur. I distinctly remember being a 13 year old separately learning about photosynthesis and combustion which sparked my curiosity to "put the pieces together". That’s when the concept of the EcoTube was born.

Over the next 4 years, I won dozens of science fair competitions and received international media attention for the EcoTube (i.e. also referred to as the Algae Mobile). I received grant funding from the EPA, Ashoka, Ricoh, and local universities. I built hundreds of prototypes and did my best to overcome both technical and business challenges to make the device viable for commercial use. 

Technical Challenges 

Algae, or any living organism for that matter, cannot survive in the pressure and heat conditions of the exhaust. This was the first challenge in the laboratory setting: finding a way to let a micro-algae bioreactor live in the extreme conditions of the exhaust pipe. Over the next few years, I started a project of genetically engineering a strain of micro-algae through artificial selection. This is much simpler than it sounds. I would start with a pool of algae and start exposing it to higher heat and pressure conditions. Sometimes they would all die but sometimes a little algae would survive the incremental change in environment. Then I would take those living strains and add third party catalysts to help improve the rate of photosynthesis. After years of running this experiment on repeat and a lot of trial and error, I had created a genetically superior strain of algae. 

Even if I was able to keep the algae alive, there’s a minimum amount of energy required to activate photosynthesis. Photosynthesis, like any chemical reaction, requires a certain amount of baseline energy to activate and sustain. In the exhaust pipe of a car, it’s impossible to predict the amount of water that will flow through. Additionally, the flow rate of emissions is too high to capture a significant amount via photosynthesis. In the laboratory setting I was supplementing the energy requirements with external sources: I tried a series of mirrors to input sunlight, artificially created light to match the Sun’s wavelength, and more. 

Ultimately if I was able to solve every technical challenge, adding weight to a car means you have to burn more fuel. So the amount of carbon dioxide reduced from the device would have to greater than the increase in emissions from the incremental fuel needed to move the car at an additional weight. This was when I realized I would have to work with an automotive manufacturer. 

As a teenager, I learned that I could tackle extremely complex technical challenges by tackling them using first principles: understanding something at its very basic level, speaking to experts, and then trying a solution. If it doesn’t work, finding out why and iterate. Sounds simple but this approach has given me self-confidence to tackle the software development industry with Hatch Apps and then finance with Jaggi. 

Business Challenges

All of the science aside, there was a fundamental problem with the business model for the EcoTube: there was no incentive, in the form of time or cost saving, for customers. In economics, we call this a public externality. A consumer puts up the upfront cost and society gets the benefit. We would be able to get environmentalists to purchase the device but that wouldn’t be enough to build a large business. After years in development, I realized that I needed to build a market to incentivize environmental behavior. We even launched an app to reward people for living a more eco-friendly lifestyle. 

I learned that either you need to be an ‘application’ that is riding on the coattails of an existing market or you need to be an ‘infrastructure’ that is prepared to build the market itself. There’s a lot of money to be made being the market-maker for an industry, but it’s a large and expensive undertaking. In business, sometimes you need to play checkers and sometimes chess. In the case of the EcoTube, I was playing checkers when I needed to be playing chess. 

Timing

When I first invented the EcoTube in 2007, I was 13 years old and it was for a science fair project. There was no way for me to predict how this device would shape the next 10 years of my life: international media coverage, speaking at global conferences, joining boards to inform STEM policy, and working with automotive manufacturers. Although it had a life changing impact on me personally, the timing was wrong. The market for carbon capture and storage did not exist yet. Companies like Climate Benefits didn’t exist yet to create a market of supply and demand for carbon removal. 

Although there’s no real way to time a product (i.e. anyone who says they can, is either full of shit or actually behind the demand curve), I did learn how important luck and timing is when starting a company as it relates to the associated infrastructure you need to be successful.

Conclusion 

In the end, the EcoTube wasn’t the commercial success that I had envisioned. I did, however, get a kickstart in my career and which gave me credibility at a young age. The science still lives on with other patents and scientific research. Ultimately, the greatest impact was on the thousands of fellow young entrepreneurs and changemakers that the story inspired. Until this day, I receive emails and messages from young people interested in STEM. 

Would I do it over again? Absolutely.