These machines are helping to remove plastic, pollutants, and other harmful species from both water and land.
Let’s start with B-Bots, fully electric, solar-powered beach cleaning robots made by serial cleaners.
B-Bots function similarly to a tracked-tread sand sifter, moving along it by dipping a few inches into the sand and collecting sand along the way.
The sand is brought over the sifter, which shakes back and forth, releasing the sand and holding on to any bits of debris stored inside it. The debris then gets emptied out and examined. A remote control is used to control B-bots.
PIXIE drone is another electric trash-eating machine that works at lakes. This version of it’s remote control looks like the B-Bots one, though the company makes an autonomous version as well.
The machine has an open mouth; it skims the surface and then it has a mesh collection reservoir. As it moves through the water, it brings material into the mouth of the pixie drone and then hits that mesh, and the water flows out through the backside, but any material that’s caught up in the pixie drone is then collected.
The pixie drone was designed to filter trash, with the addition of hydrocarbon filter. It could be added to remove contaminants like oil from the surface.
Humans sort everything that the pixie drone collects to make sure the materials are treated correctly.
The serial cleaners also make a stationary collection device called the collector. It attaches to docks or floating structures and can be plugged into the standard shore power system most docks use for electricity and gather surface waste.
The benefits of the collector and Pixie drone are that they allow you to install hydrocarbon sponges in them. So not only is it capturing inorganic debris and material, but it can also capture hydrocarbons like oil and gasoline, then purify the water.
Arnold