22 *Blessing in disguise* or *Turn Lemons into Lemonade*

Use harmful factors (particularly, harmful effects of the environment or surroundings) to achieve a positive effect.
  • Use waste heat to generate electric power.
  • Recycle waste (scrap) material from one process as raw materials for another.

Eliminate the primary harmful action by adding it to another harmful action to resolve the problem.
  • Add a buffering material to a corrosive solution.
  • Use a helium-oxygen mix for diving, to eliminate both nitrogen narcosis and oxygen poisoning from air and other nitrox mixes.

Amplify a harmful factor to such a degree that it is no longer harmful.
  • Use a backfire to eliminate the fuel from a forest fire.
TRIZ principe 22


Is this principle frequently used?

This principle is rarely used with 84 instances in the matrix.

This principle is proposed to solve the following contradictions:

Click on a contradiction to explore it

1/30 1/31 2/17 2/21 2/30 2/31 5/30 6/31 7/24 7/30 11/30 12/7 12/17 12/26 12/30 13/12 13/36 13/37 14/31 15/30 15/31 16/31 17/1 17/2 17/12 17/14 17/30 17/31 19/22 20/30 20/31 21/11 21/30 22/30 22/31 23/2 23/30 24/8 24/30 24/31 24/33 25/13 25/31 28/30 30/1 30/2 30/5 30/7 30/9 30/11 30/12 30/15 30/17 30/20 30/21 30/22 30/23 30/24 30/35 30/36 30/37 30/39 31/1 31/2 31/3 31/6 31/14 31/15 31/16 31/17 31/20 31/22 31/25 31/39 33/24 35/18 36/13 36/30 37/13 37/24 37/30 39/13 39/30 39/31


The colour indicates the ranking of the proposed principle to solve the contradiction: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.
This ranking reflects the frequency of occurrence of the principle in the analysed patents for this type of contradiction.
When a principle appears in first position, it means that it is statistically the most used in the patents studied for this type of problem.