Fashion on a college campus is nothing new, but Joe Hynek’s power purse is something special. With six solar panels incorporated into the exterior design, the purse illustrates a unique blend of engineering, aesthetic style, and high-tech practicality. It’s been featured from a business, technological, environmental, and textile perspective in newspapers and Internet publications such as BusinessWeek Online, discoverychannel.com, and Environmental Science and Technology.

Hynek, a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering, came up with the power purse concept so that people on the go can keep their cell phones, PDAs, and other small electronic items charged. From an environmental perspective, he says it will conserve energy and also reduce the number of batteries that end up in landfills.

Mark Bryden, ME associate professor and Hynek’s advisor, and Hynek received a $22,500 Technology Commercialization Acceleration Program grant through Iowa State’s Institute for Physical Research and Technology to fine-tune the design and technical aspects of the purse as a marketable product. In addition, they’re developing intellectual property aimed at increasing the use of solar panels in clothing. “I’m very excited about the prospect we have for increasing the market for a unique Iowa product,” Bryden says.

October 4 Des Moines Register
Soon, solar purse could do the charging

September 20 BusinessWeek Online
Ultraportable power charges ahead

August 31 discoverychannel.com
Solar hat, purse charge cell phones

August 31 Environmental Science and Technology
That’s a really powerful purse

August 5 Iowa State news release
Charges to go