A Finnish huussi, or composting toilet, has been built in the centre of the country’s pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, which aims at critically exploring the world’s unsustainable approach to sanitation.
Declaring the “death of the flushing toilet as we know it” the pavilion, called Huussi – Imagining the Future History of Sanitation, was designed by The Dry Collective – a group of architects, designers and artists, and curated by Arja Renell.
The Finnish Pavilion is called Huussi – Imagining the Future History of Sanitation
The project is a response to the theme of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, The Laboratory of the Future, curated by Lesley Lokko and asking participants to consider what it means for architects to be “agents of change”.
Finland’s display begins with a mock archaeological excavation of a typical flushing toilet – responsible for 30 per cent of domestic water use in developed economies – in the grounds of the Alvar Aalto-designed pavilion, symbolically consigning it to the distant past.
It explores the world’s unsustainable approach to sanitation
“We cannot live on a planet where billions of people use rapidly diminishing fresh water resources to flush their waste,” said curator Arja Renell.
“The whole system needs to change,” she continued. “A shift will come as we begin to see our waste as a valuable resource, and transition to treating it as such.”
The pavilion features a composting toilet
Inside the pavilion, a cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure contains a domestic-scale huussi, surrounded by wooden planters that have been fertilised using human urine-based fertiliser.
While the huussi toilet cannot be used by visitors during the biennale, it will afterwards be donated to VERAS, a local non-profit organisation that owns an agricultural part and allotments on the nearby Venetian island of Vignole.
Accompanying the huussi is a fictional documentary film set in the year 2043 demonstrating the “absurdity” of our current attitude to sanitation and waste, along with other video works presenting information about alternative sanitation solutions.
“We want to share the domesticity and utility of the Finnish huussi to inspire a dialogue about the state of what is possible… what considerations become critical, and how will solutions vary in different parts of the world?” said Renell.
“Huussi inspires and invites all professionals to start looking for alternative solutions which would better serve the world we inhabit today,” she continued.
Accompanying the huussi is a fictional documentary film
The Finnish Pavilion is one of several that will be opened exclusively on Dezeen during the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023. Other pavilions that were seen first on Dezeen include the Danish pavilion, which focuses on rising Sea levels and the US pavilion that aims to question plastic dependency.
Dezeen is live reporting from the Venice Architecture Biennale, which takes place from 20 May to 26 November 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
A number of organizations have charted a path to a decarbonized world by 2050 and broken down required action in four areas or “pathways.” The third pathway is often the unsung hero of our climate successes to date: efficiency.
Simply put, efficiency means using less of a resource to achieve the same result. The 1970s oil embargo and energy crisis inspired the modern energy efficiency movement in the United States, which led to a $360 billion energy efficiency industry. This industry managed to keep both energy and electricity usage flat over the past 20 years, despite the fact that the population has grown by 10% from 301 million to 331 million over the same period.
According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, over a 25 year period from 1980 to 2014, efficiency investments resulted in a 50% improvement in US energy intensity. This means that while energy use increased by 26%, overall gross domestic product (GDP) far outpaced energy use, increasing by 149%.
These decades of unsung progress have significantly reduced energy use in buildings, industry, and transportation and thus lowered demand for more fossil fueled power. Amidst the doom and gloom of the climate crisis, it’s important to remember to celebrate and amplify what we humans are doing right. Efficiency falls on the bright side of the “best of times, worst of times” dichotomy, so let’s make sure to give ourselves credit for our successes.
We might call efficiency the low hanging fruit on the pathway to decarbonization. There’s so much more to be picked.
Efficiency sometimes gets a bad rap because it so often includes messages of scarcity like “reduce” and “limit,” and can feel like doing less bad rather than more good. This narrative suggests that people have to sacrifice or change their lifestyle, which few of us want to hear. But this is largely a communication problem.
Amazing advances in technology mean that our homes and vehicles can use less energy without anyone noticing, and without sacrificing our quality of life. For example, refrigerators use 75% less energy now than they did a couple decades ago, and they perform better and cost less. Light bulbs have followed the same trend, accounting for 10% of an average home’s electricity consumption in 2015 and only4% in 2021, thanks to LEDs. A decarbonized life has many advantages and thus offers a narrative of abundance rather than scarcity. Denmark uses about 40% of the energy that the US uses and yet it’s recognized for the second highest quality of life in the world.
Taking efficiency to the next level
While we celebrate all these society-wide gains in efficiency, in our family we find it easy to take efficiency to the next level. We believe the climate crisis asks this of us. For us, being efficient and wasting less involves both:
Technologies—the products, appliances and fixtures in our home that reduce energy use through their operations. Think efficient appliances, insulation, LED lighting, etc. (shower heads are a personal favorite), along with what we call the “big moves” of heat pumps for space and water heating, which cut home energy use by a whopping 50% to 75%.
Behaviors—the routines, habits, and practices we form that have a measurable impact on carbon reduction. Think hang-drying laundry and eating less meat.
Combining both strategies will supercharge energy savings and make it easier for utilities, or rooftop solar panels, to provide all the clean power our household needs.
But it’s also clear that efficiency isn’t a silver bullet, and we can’t collectively “efficiency our way out” of the climate crisis. Many of the efficiency solutions of recent decades included enhanced methane and petroleum burning technologies, but no matter how efficient your gas furnace or gas car is, it’s still burning fossil fuels that emit the greenhouse gases that are changing the climate. This is why efficiency and the electrification pathway go hand in hand. It’s much easier to electrify everything and run our lives on clean electricity if we first reduce our energy needs.
At the same time, while some proponents of electrification believe we can decarbonize without worrying much about efficiency, a commitment to efficiency is undoubtedly the best way to make electrification work. Efficiency lowers how much new renewable electricity we’ll need in the coming decades.
Household efficiency strategies
Our family’s efficiency strategies (which mostly now feel old school) include blowing in extra cellulose insulation into our attic, to increase home comfort, and air sealing all the penetrations so conditioned air doesn’t sneak out. Other strategies include installing low-flow shower heads and faucet aerators to reduce both water use and the energy needed to heat the water.
Over the past decade, we also replaced most of our old appliances with ENERGY STAR–certified, all-electric, super-efficient ones, and opted for heat pumps to heat our home and water and to dry our clothes, because heat pumps are the most efficient way to create heat. We also practice easy passive cooling techniques during our increasingly hot summers, which most of the time means we don’t need air-conditioning. Finally, we bought our home in a neighborhood with a high walk score so that we can move efficiently and walk, bike, and ride transit whenever possible. All these efficiency measures make it easier for our family’s 28 solar panels to meet most of our home and transportation energy needs.
All in all, efficiency is a crucial pathway to both personal and societal decarbonization. And whether you sing it’s praises or not, we’ve all gotten a lot more efficient in how we use energy over the past decades. It’s time to build on this success and continue to find ways to use electric, renewable energy better.
This article is part of a series by Naomi Cole and Joe Wachunas, first published in CleanTechnica. Through “Decarbonize Your Life,” they share their experience, lessons learned, and recommendations for how to reduce household emissions, building a decarbonization roadmap for individuals.
The authors:
Joe Wachunas and Naomi Cole both work professionally to address climate change—Naomi in urban sustainability and energy efficiency and Joe in the electrification of buildings and transportation. A passion for debarbonization, and their commitment to walk the walk, has led them to ductless heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, induction cooking, solar in multiple forms, hang-drying laundry (including cloth diapers), no cars to electric cars and charging without a garage or driveway, a reforestation grant from the US Department of Agriculture, and more. They live in Portland, OR, with two young children.
Spotted: Stand.earth’s 2022 review of the fashion industry’s global carbon emissions found an alarming increase. Of the 10 major brands that were assessed, all were committed to the United Nations Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, yet only one company is on track to reduce supply chain emissions enough to keep global warming at the 1.5 degree Celsius or below mark.
Ways to reduce emissions include working with recycled materials and designing products for longevity. Materials science company GroundTruth is doing just that for its bags and accessories. The company makes carbon-neutral, vegan, recycled plastic backpacks and carryalls that have a 10-year performance guarantee. The latest product is the 38L Hybrid Duffle Pack that incorporates the company’s latest technology – hardware made from captured carbon.
The packs can be carried by hand, on the back, and across the body, with bottle holders on the front of the pack to make hydrating easy. The bags also open a full 180 degrees for swift accessibility. Notably, each duffle uses 123 plastic bottles for the exterior fabric, and the interior fabric is made from recycled fishing nets.
In tests, the captured carbon material performed 40 per cent better than virgin plastic. The waterproof coating on the material contains no volatile organic compounds, and the company works with Bluesign-certified manufacturers that meet Global Recycled Standards for safe and healthy production processes. Explorer Ed Stafford helped design and test the functionality of the pack’s features and in May 2023, GroundTruth closed a successful Kickstarter campaign and started production of the Hybrid Duffle in Jakarta.
The complexity of the fashion industry supply chain is inspiring an equally impressive number of improvements to its ecological footprint, and Springwise has spotted the growing of cotton indoors and fabrics made from banana fibres.
Spotted: Though it suffered a decline during the pandemic, the marine vessel industry has been rapidly growing in recent years and is likely to continue on that trajectory, with demand increasing for cargo ships and recreational vessels. As demand grows, though, we need to find ways of mitigating the environmental impact of these vehicles, given that many boats are fuel-intensive and emit large volumes of CO2. And, the noise of boat propellers also disturbs, and can even harm, marine life.
Now, Sharrow Marine has created the Sharrow Propeller, which helps increase speed and efficiency, produces less noise and vibration, and enables greater control of the vessel while docking and superior handling of tight turns even at high speeds.
When it comes to boats, cavitation can be an issue – a process where, as the propeller spins, areas of high and low pressure are created at the blade tip, and the pressure changes create cavities of air that make bubbles. As the bubbles pop, it creates a lot of noise, and these multiple implosions gradually damage the leading edge of the propellor and erode the blades, impacting performance and potentially making boats unsafe over time.
Instead, Sharrow Marine has created the loop-based Sharrow Propeller with its True Advance technology that – because it has no tip – drastically reduces or eliminates cavitation. The technology allows the Sharrow Propeller to achieve its maximum advance rate and efficiency much earlier than standard propellers. Because it is more efficient, boats with the Sharrow Propeller can travel at faster speeds with the same engine RPM (revolutions per minute).
In March, the company unveiled its Sharrow XO series, which brings the innovative technology to large outboard engines.
Springwise has spotted many innovations in the boating industry, including a solar-powered passenger catamaran that causes no engine noise, and an autonomous electric ferry.
Spotted: The World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest report on the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All finds that progress is lagging on health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to overlapping health crises. One contributor to those crises is the growing resistance to antibiotics. Materials scientists and innovators searching for new medicines are increasingly turning to the natural world for inspiration.
Brazilian biotechnology company Next Innovative Therapeutics (Nintx) has built a laboratory gastrointestinal system called xGIbiomics to test plant-based therapies for a range of illnesses. The company is focusing on infectious diseases, gastroenterology, neuroscience, immunology, and cardiometabolic health.
To better sift through Brazil’s biodiverse natural environment and narrow down potential candidates for new pharmaceuticals, Nintx also created an analytics infrastructure called GAIApath that’s powered by artificial intelligence (AI). By more quickly identifying plants that show promise for medicinal use, Nintx’s AI can help R&D departments work more efficiently and with less duplication.
Once a plant is chosen as a possible extract or compound for a pharmaceutical therapy, the xGIbiomics lab allows scientists to track its efficacy in treating both the microbiome and targeted disease cells. Currently focusing on the development of an antiviral treatment, Nintx is also using a $3 million (around €2.7 million) investment to accelerate the path to market for its products, most of which are in the early stages of research.
Technology continues to impact the global provision of healthcare, and Springwise has spotted innovators doing everything from delivering time-release micro dosages of medicines to printing vaccines on-demand with a tabletop printer.
Spotted: Sugarcane is the world’s most produced crop as of 2021 and is grown mostly for use as sugar and ethanol. Bagasse is the waste product left behind after the sugarcane is crushed to harvest the juice. Some of the leftover material is used for biofuel, but much is left to go to waste. Many of the world’s developing countries are key sugarcane producers, so finding a way to turn the bagasse waste into a valuable new product would provide significant support in further developing local economies.
A collaborative project based in the University of East London has brought together researchers, commercial partners, sustainability experts, and architects to create Sugarcrete, a concrete brick replacement. According to the team, if only 30 per cent of the world’s bagasse waste was used for Sugarcrete production, the global brick industry could be completely replaced.
Sugarcrete bricks are ultra-low carbon and are made by mixing bagasse with mineral binders. A fast-growing crop, sugarcane is an extremely efficient carbon sink. When combined with the low-emission manufacturing process, the final product becomes a particularly sustainable building option.
The polyhedral bricks are designed to lock together to create strength without the need for additional supplies. Square slabs of the bricks are held together with only perimeter ties, and the team is working on strengthening the bricks further.
The bricks meet industry standards for strength, durability, fire resistance, and thermal properties, and are four times lighter than traditional bricks with only 15 per cent of the carbon footprint. The team has made its research open source in order to support communities in developing new industries to replace the need to import expensive building supplies.
The usefulness of sugarcane biowaste is being recognised by various innovators, who are transforming it into a range of new products. Springwise has also spotted electronics packaging and takeaway cups with a built-in lid.
Spotted: Street vendors are a big part of Kenyan culture and a significant source of livelihood for many Kenyans, particularly in the capital, Nairobi. But, for some 100,000 street food vendors in the city, it can be both economically challenging and environmentally damaging to keep food at the right temperature. Many vendors rely on charcoal, which releases high levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and pollutants.
Instead, Nairobi-based startup Zuhura Solutions has introduced the Halisi Trolley, a solar-powered vending car that allows food to be kept warm for longer using an alternative, clean energy source.
The stored solar energy is converted into heat that freely warms the food to ensure it’s kept at the necessary temperature for safe eating. Surplus energy that is generated powers LED lights, so vendors can sell them for hours into the night. There are also charging ports that can be used to power customers’ mobile phones at an extra cost – allowing vendors to easily earn additional income.
Zuhura sells adverting space on the carts to fund its production and subsidised the final cost for vendors. The startup only uses durable, high-quality materials to create the carts, which are available in customised or modular versions, or can be sold in bulk.
The startup offers vendors a flexible pay-as-you-go plan of $80 (around €73) a month with a 10 per cent initial down payment. Zuhura also connects vendors with technicians who can quickly service their trolleys in the event of a malfunction.
Food insecurity is a growing concern, particularly for areas without the infrastructure to store produce safely. Springwise has spotted many innovations working to ease this pressure, including a solar-powered refrigerator to cut food spoilage for fishermen and farmers, and another sustainable refrigeration unit that can generate continuous refrigeration for up to four days.
Hampshire-based Pad Studio recently completed a post-occupancy study on an eco-house it completed 13 years ago. In this interview, director Wendy Perring discusses the findings.
Architecture practice Pad Studio completed New Forest House in 2010. Over the past year, it has been actively measuring the home’s energy usage.
The studio funded the study itself as a learning exercise. Perring believes the approach should be more common among architects.
Wendy Perring believes more architecture studios should undertake post-occupancy studies into their projects. Photo by Paul Close
“It’s so important, because otherwise, how do we learn?” she told Dezeen. “Architects are so sheltered in terms of their sharing of knowledge.”
“It would be great if it was actually mandatory to collect data from all new houses, that there was a much more joined-up system so that we could just share knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.”
The project was developed for a couple with a large budget who wanted to prioritise sustainability – meaning Perring was given licence to experiment.
“Our clients were very enlightened and they requested a house that treads lightly on the Earth, which totally fitted with our ethos, and I think was one of the reasons why we got the job,” recalled Perring, who undertook the project prior to buying out her business partner and establishing Pad Studio.
“Degree of hoping for the best”
Some of the decisions Perring made were unusual for the time.
“I guess it was a case of putting into practice a lot of textbook research, and maybe there was a degree of hoping for the best,” she said. “But it really did pay off.”
For example, the design focuses on a high level of thermal mass, with a concrete structure preferred to lightweight timber frame.
Thermally massive materials like concrete absorb heat from the sun during the day and store it, slowly releasing the warmth when external temperatures drop.
New Forest House was completed in 2010 for a couple who wanted to prioritise sustainability
Perring worked with consultant and Bath University visiting professor Doug King on the thermal mass strategy at New Forest House, which contradicted what many low-carbon architecture advocates believed around the turn of the 2010s.
“At that time there was a lot of debate about thermal mass,” said Perring. “We were reading about all this stuff, but we took a leap of faith in many ways.”
“One of the things that is really fascinating in the post-occupancy data is how flat the temperature differential is. It really does work.”
Timber frame was chosen for the guest annexe, where sporadic occupancy meant quicker heating was considered an advantage.
Slatted shutters over the windows help to control the amount of sunlight – and therefore solar heat gain – entering the house.
Perring’s other major sustainability decision was to take New Forest House’s energy generation mostly off-grid.
A ground-source heat pump – Perring’s preference but out of most clients’ financial reach – provides heating and hot water, meaning the house has no mains gas connection. Its bore holes plunge 100 metres underground.
Back in 2010, the heat pump actually had a larger carbon impact than a gas combi boiler, but the national electricity grid’s decisive shift away from coal in the years since has already led to a significant carbon saving.
Pad Studio experimented with thermal mass science as part of the project
A solar thermal system on the building’s roof supports the heat pump’s hot water provision.
In addition, 47 solar panels next to the house generate an average of 9,500 kilowatt-hours (kw/h) per year – equivalent to £3,420 at today’s prices.
Solar battery storage with 13.5 kw/h of capacity now being installed on the site will ensure that more of the energy generated can be put to use.
Up to 97 per cent cheaper to run
The post-occupancy energy efficiency study was conducted in collaboration with Mesh Energy Consultants. Five Purmetrix sensors were positioned around the home for 12 months, gathering data on humidity, temperature and ventilation.
They found that, as a result of the sustainability measures embedded into its design, New Forest House is 42 per cent cheaper to run than a home built to current building regulations.
If it wasn’t for the household’s unusually high electricity usage – with an electric pottery kiln, an infrared sauna, electric woodworking tools and an electric car – the house would be 97 cheaper to run compared to most new-builds being constructed today.
The home is mostly off-grid, with a ground-source heat pump, photovoltaic panels and a solar thermal panel
Combined, the heat pump and solar mean New Forest House has emitted 110 per cent less carbon dioxide during its lifetime than if it had been powered by gas.
As well as operational efficiency, the study also looked at embodied carbon – that is, emissions caused by the building’s construction.
It concluded that at 359 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per square metre (kgCO2e/m2), New Forest House has an embodied carbon value 43 per cent smaller than set by current building regulations and the Royal Institute of British Architects’ 2030 Climate Challenge.
This is despite the importance of embodied carbon only becoming properly understood in the past few years.
According to the study, New Forest House is 42 per cent cheaper than a house built to today’s standards
“We weren’t talking about embodied carbon back then – we didn’t have the label – but we knew that we wanted to steward resources carefully,” said Perring.
Local materials were used where possible, while in another unusual step for the time, the concrete has a high proportion of ground granulated blast-furnace slag instead of highly polluting cement.
“We thought: ‘well, if we’re building using concrete, why don’t we just be honest about that fact and actually try to reduce the environmental impact of it, and exploit the fact we’ve got this thermal mass and use it to its benefit’,” said Perring.
“I think architects are very judgmental, in terms of: concrete is bad, timber is good. And that’s not always the case. It’s how you use it.”
Earth berm and swimming pond
Initially she had wanted to use stabilised rammed earth taken from the site for the structure, but testing revealed the soil was unsuitable.
Instead, earth excavated for a basement and swimming pond was saved from landfill by being used for a berm on the northern side, providing added insulation and acoustic shielding from a nearby motorway.
Home to a small community of voles, it is among multiple interventions on the large site intended to contribute to the local ecology, alongside a green roof and the planted swimming pond, which attracts news, grass snakes, kingfishers and nightjars.
As the New Forest is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest, this was essential for gaining planning permission.
An earth berm was formed using the soil dug to create the swimming pond
The earth sheltering does come with downsides, however. The sensors picked up high humidity levels on this side of the house, increasing the risk of mould growth.
Meanwhile, for most of the year the house’s water is supplied by a restored seepage well that takes from the groundwater.
Wastewater is then treated on-site and filtered back into the landscape before being drawn up by the well again.
“We have to be designing for longevity”
For Perring, circularity is the next major step towards architecture becoming more sustainable, with demountable structures and recyclable materials key aspects of design.
“It’s not acceptable to knock down a house and send it off to landfill,” she said. “We have to be designing for longevity, but we have to be considering what happens, inevitably, to those buildings that do have a defined lifespan.”
In the past 13 years, Pad Studio’s practice has moved on from New Forest House.
Pad Studio’s current projects aim for a lower embodied carbon than New Forest House
A greater range of insulation and window systems are available, Perring explains, while current projects target a considerably smaller embodied carbon.
Its recently completed The Clay Retreat, for instance, has a calculated embodied carbon of 159 kgCO2e/m2 – 56 per lower than New Forest House.
New Forest House’s energy performance remains impressive compared to most houses being built today, but Perring believes that is partly a function of policy failures in the UK.
“I am a big believer that the only way to push things forward is statutory change,” she said.
“There’s got to be better joined up policies in terms of the government setting standards for embodied carbon and operational energy, there’s just got to be.
“We’ve got to use less, we really do.”
The photography is by Richard Chivers unless otherwise stated.
Spotted: Bone grafts are considered to be the gold standard in terms of repairing and reconstructing damaged bones. These can either be autologous, where a patient’s own tissue is used, or allogeneic, where the tissue is taken from another person. But limited supply, donor-site complications, and risk of disease transmission can often prevent allogeneic grafts from being used. Xenogeneic bone grafts, where the graft is taken from another species, represent a feasible alternative. But, because xenograft materials come from mammal tissue, it raises ethical questions surrounding animal welfare.
To find a safe, adaptable, and environmentally friendly alternative, a team of researchers has developed a method to convert eggshells into endotoxin-free and immunocompatible amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) particles.
First the shells were heated, then mixed with distilled water and phosphoric acid. The precipitate was then filtered and washed, before being submerged in liquid nitrogen. The resulting ACP particles are essential to forming hard and strong bone and can therefore be used as an ideal bone substitute.
As well as containing plenty of calcium and phosphorous, Dr Qianli Ma – the study’s lead author – highlights that eggshells are also an ideal raw material because they contain traces of magnesium and strontium, which are associated with healthy bone regeneration. The team also created a novel 3D spheroid model, which allows the activity of eggshell ACP to be studied in vitro. With the model, the researchers could observe how the ACP materials would actually interact with osteoblasts, and they were found to be safe and effective in promoting bone regeneration.
If scaled successfully, this new technique could enable an unlimited supply of sustainable bone graft materials, while reducing the volume of eggshells going to waste. The scientists hope their latest findings inspire additional research into the conversion of food waste into high-value biomaterials.
Eggshells are not only being used in the medical field. Springwise has also spotted a design studio creating wall tiles from discarded eggshells, and another that has transformed the waste into car interiors.
Spotted: The more we improve fossil-fuel-free vehicles, the greener the transportation sector will become. And, according to The University of Glasgow’s School of Chemistry, Scottish-grown seaweed may be the unlikely key holder to making electric vehicles (EVs) more enticing for buyers. More specifically, the team is currently testing whether it will help improve the life span and charge time of lithium-ion batteries, used to power EVs.
A material found in brown seaweed might help develop batteries using silicon instead of graphite. Although graphite is a central component of a lithium-ion battery, it can only store a limited amount of charge and has a restricted lifespan. Replacing it, then, is vital to improving the charging capacity, with silicone being suggested as a viable alternative. The only issue is that when silicon is used on its own, it damages the battery quickly. So, to couple an increased need to store energy with an increased battery lifespan, the team have created a prototype that combines silicone with a material in seaweed.
“Battery technology is going to play a hugely important role in our transition away from fossil fuels. Electric vehicles, renewable energy production, national grids and other critical elements of a net zero future will depend on having batteries that can store large amounts of energy in the smallest volumes possible and with extended lifetimes,” said Professor Duncan Gregory, chair in Inorganic Materials at the University of Glasgow’s School of Chemistry.
Using funding from the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC), the team has so far produced a prototype the size of a watch battery, with tests showing promising results. To prove that seaweed can boost charging capacity, the researchers are now looking towards making a larger battery to test the technology at scale.
Springwise has previously spotted other innovations that aim to improve electric vehicles (EVS), including a 3D-printed prototype that could improve EV engine efficiency and a battery manufacturer that makes EVs less likely to catch on fire.
