An ultra low cost heat source from readily available materials for laboratory and therapeutic applications

Abstract

In most of the under developed nations, access to basic health care is scarce. A heater is an indispensable device for many applications, especially for medical purposes. As such a simple and easy to make heater from readily available materials becomes a valuable equipment to help alleviate the human health problems. An ultra low cost heater from readily available materials like paper/cellulose acetate sheet and a pencil was designed and fabricated. Manually, using high graphite contained pencil; paper/cellulose surface was arbitrarily coated by applying numerous pencil strokes on the surface. Contacts were connected using either a wire or Copper/Aluminum foils over the coated surface. Maximum temperature attended by the heater was around 140 degree celcius. The main application of this heater was explored in the laboratory and therapeutic uses.