Jeabyun Yeon, Saeed Khademi, and John Khademi wanted a device that would allow for underwater exploration without being tethered to the surface with a snorkel, or requiring a bulky tank to be below the water’s surface. They developed Triton to act like the gills of a fish to filter oxygen into the user’s mask and allow the user to breathe underwater. The team is currently running an incredibly successful crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo.
Triton is branded as a personal respirator, giving the ability to breathe underwater for up to forty five minutes at a depth of up to fifteen feet. The footprint of Triton is 29 centimeters long by 12 centimeters wide. The design of the artificial gills is a water filter with a microporous hollow fiber inside. The membrane keeps the water out and allows the oxygen to pass through. A microcompressor pulls the oxygen and stores it until the user needs to breathe. An integrated lithium ion battery powers the compressor. The project has already raised a little controversy - the company has changed from first saying that the system extracts air from water to the idea that oxygen cylinders in Triton will store oxygen and then be transmitted to the user.
There are interesting videos on the campaign page, including an animation from News Direct explaining again how the system works, and a few videos of users sitting on the bottom of a pool for thirteen minutes and breathing happily through Triton. There's also a nice discussion about early tests of the system, and realizing that pressure fifteen feet below the surface required a different battery and compressor.
Triton looks like a futuristic answer to a modern day problem, taking inspiration from movies like Thunderball and cartoons like Sealab 2021. However, the project has been collecting some detractors along with the parade of accolades and positive media coverage. Alistair Dove calculated in 2014 that Triton would need to filter around 90 Liters per minute to meet a human’s breathing needs. There’s an entire subreddit dedicated to badmouthing the project, and this is the second funding round after the founders canceled the first campaign to clarify their technology and gave back almost $900,000. If we side with the benefit of the doubt here and assume the proprietary technology inside Triton will work, units will ship in December 2016.
