Most schoolchildren learn about capillary action in science class. It's a phenomenon where a liquid confined in a narrow space such as a thin tube rises spontaneously, acting against the force of gravity. This strange effect occurs because of inter-molecular attraction between the liquid and the surrounding solid surface.

Capillary action can be observed in many forms in our daily lives; water absorbed by plant roots, for example, rises through the veins of the plant stem to supply the needs of flowers and leaves; or porous objects such as sponges, paper towels or cotton T-shirts will rapidly absorb water, all defying gravity. These phenomena are examples of capillary action, or capillarity.

At present Chan Tien-yin's team is gradually developing a diverse range of items such as large outdoor pots, and smart water-wise watering systems for courtyard gardens. The products seem to have a bright future.

Capillarity plays a critical role in Chan's invention. Porous structures have been the focus of his research for many years, and he has designed many kinds of permeable steel for use in construction, which contain different numbers and sizes of pores. He has also applied a similar idea to the creation of jewelry such as earrings, necklaces and brooches. In a special production process, precious metals like gold and silver are made porous before they are modeled into jewelry. If one applies a few drops of a favorite perfume on this type of jewelry, it will absorb the fragrance, and the aroma will remain for several months. This type of unique fragrant jewelry has attracted quite a bit of attention from business.

When Chan took over as director of the General Education Center four years ago, he was sad to see that students took little care with the aesthetics of a product during their creative training and practice lessons. So he began a pottery class, employing a professional in the field to improve his students' sense of aesthetics.

The pottery classes turned out to be great fun for him and his students, so he started thinking about whether pottery products could have more value added, in addition to the obvious artistic aspect.

After discussions with relatives, friends, colleagues and students, Chan concluded that there was a strong demand for a smart plant pot in which plants didn't need to be watered frequently, and ideally one which could remind its owner when it was time for a drink. With this idea under his belt, his experience with capillarity and porous structures came to the fore, and he applied his knowledge to the design of an automatic planter.

The first generation of pots adopted scroll and ruyi shapes. As this design is not considered trendy enough, it is currently under revision.

Chan explains that a porous structure is metal or pottery material which, through a special production process, is pierced by thousands of tiny pores about five to 10 microns in diameter. Just like the human skin which uses pores to sweat or to absorb moisture according to the relative humidity of the environment, the minute pores in Chan's planter pots also "sweat" or absorb moisture according to humidity. In keeping with modern trends towards manufacturing using environmentally friendly materials, Chan chose to use recycled waste materials for his products.

Chan heard a news story about Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corporation (CMO) who were having problems dealing with wastes of the glass substrate used for liquid crystal displays. In the light of this need, he began to experiment with clay containing traces of LCD glass powder provided by CMO. He discovered that the temperature for firing pottery containing glass powder could be reduced from 1200 to 1100°C. This not only cut manufacturing time and energy costs, but also increased the hardness of products quite dramatically.

Chan has also employed recycled diatomite, which had been previously used to filter malt wort (the liquid from which beer is brewed) in a brewery, as another production material. "This diatomite is an imported product, and usually it's only used a few times and then thrown away. That's a terrible waste of resources. It is in fact a porous material, so it was perfect for our product."

After quite a bit of experimentation and adjustment, smart planter pots were finally produced using clay, liquid crystal glass powder and recycled diatomite. The latter two together represent nearly 40% of the total materials used.

Chan allowed his students to deal with the aesthetics of the finished product. The first generation of pots adopted scroll or ruyi (an ancient S-shaped Chinese cere-monial scepter) shapes, a sort of wavy, rounded rectangle. Each side of the scroll pot has a particular function: one side is a little "reservoir" for storing water, while the opposite end holds the plants. As long as the reservoir contains water, through capillary action, moisture gradually infiltrates the pores and moves across to supply the plant at the opposite end.

A plant grown in a smart pot needs to be watered only once every one to two months because the porous structure of the pot is able to regulate the delivery of moisture. On the outside of the "reservoir" is a moisture display device utilizing two Chinese characters: xingfu (happiness). When the reservoir has sufficient water, xingfu is displayed in red; when the level gets low, the characters disappear to remind the user that it's time to add water.

The smart plant pot using environmentally friendly materials has solved many people's problems and gained remarkable global praise. The product has won gold awards in several renowned inventor's exhibitions including the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, Switzerland in 2009, the Nuremberg International Exhibition 2009 in Germany, Seoul International Invention Fair 2009 in Korea, and the British Invention Show 2010 in London.

It is also hoped that the invention will make money for Far East University, which has recently signed a cooperative agreement with CMO worth NT$850,000. Chan's team won a NT$1-million award in a 2009 competition run by the Ministry of Education: the U-Start Program. They also won a silver-medal award of NT$1 million in the ACER Foundation's Long-term Smile Contest 2010, beating prestigious institutions such as National Tsing Hua University, National Cheng Kung University and National Chung Cheng University among the 142 teams.

With assistance provided by these awards, Chan's team has established a company, Tao Xi Creative Technology, at the university's Innovation and Incubation Center. With all hands anticipating a bright future, they will employ more aesthetic elements to improve the product design, and will eventually develop a diverse range of products utilizing the same technology, such as large outdoor pots and smart water-wise watering systems for courtyard gardens.

The secret of innovation and invention lies in meeting and dealing with problems head on. Chan's product has won remarkable praise because it has been designed to satisfy a demand, and has been fortunate enough to win many awards and gain great appreciation from all around the world.