Can't boil an egg?
Russian scientists create a CARTON that’ll help you make the perfect one in two minutes without water
- It contains layers of chemicals that produce heat when activated
- The egg sits inside and is ready to eat in half the time it takes in water
By MARTIN ROBINSON
PUBLISHED: 12:40, 3 December 2012 | UPDATED: 14:48, 3 December 2012
It is widely considered the simplest of all cookery skills but getting it right still escapes so many sorry chefs.
But now inventors claim a tiny gadget will make sure even the world’s worst in the kitchen can boil the perfect egg in record time – and they won’t even need to put it in water.
The Gogol Mogol is a cardboard egg box made with special chemical layers that produce heat when activated.
Science: The eggs sits inside the gogol mogol and when the brown tab is pulled chemicals inside react and cook it in two minutes
It is made using similar technology to self-heating tins from calcium hydroxide, water and other chemicals which create heat when mixed together.
Once a tag has been pulled from the container the chemicals react with each other and the small package starts warming up to cook the egg inside.
After just two minutes the egg is cooked, although the user can open it later depending on how runny they like their yolk.
This smashes the four-minutes needed to cook the perfect boiled egg in water.
The carton is made up of four layers, an outer cardboard sleeve, a chemical catalyst, and a membrane lining which reacts with the calcium oxide underneath.
Its only drawback to this is the Gogol Mogol cannot be reused – but it has been created out of recycled materials to reduce waste.
The product is now being offered to manufacturers and is likely to be sold around the world in the coming years.
Science: This diagram explains how in a flash goes from raw to boiled
It was created by a Russian team of inventors known as KIAN, and designed by Evgeny Morgalev.
‘The product is just a usual egg in an unusual package, possessing unique product properties,’ a spokesman for KIAN said.
‘The time for preparing eggs should be a couple of minutes and after cooking eggs the package should be thrown away, it’s impossible to use it more than one time.
‘It uses calcium hydroxide and water, so when the components come together a large amount of heat appears.
‘Under the cardboard layer is a catalyst and a membrane, which separates the catalyst from a smart material.
‘When you pull out the membrane by stretching a tag, the chemical reaction between the catalyst and a smart material begins, and the egg begins to heat up.
Result: Two minutes later – half the time it takes usually – the egg can be taken out of the packaging and eaten
‘It takes two or three minutes to boil and may be opened when you think it’s done, some people prefer hard-boiled eggs and other like lightly cooked eggs.
‘So, in a few minutes, when you open the cover of the egg package, you have a boiled egg, it’s an easy breakfast.’
It is aimed at busy people with little time in the mornings, students or environmentalists, and has now won an award from the European Packaging Design Association.
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The World of Science and Technology
2012-12-03 19:01:11
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