Spotted: Most top-end solar panels today work at an efficiency rate of around 23 per cent, and if there was a big jump in that rate, it would be a significant boon for global decarbonisation efforts. Right now, experts predict that renewable energy sources will provide 35 per cent of the world’s power by 2025.
With an anti-reflective coating applied directly to the top glass layer of photovoltaic arrays, German energy technology company Phytonics is helping improve the efficiency of standard solar panels. The company’s coating could improve each system’s annual yield by 5 to 10 per cent.
Inspired by the efficient and robust nature of plant photosynthesis, the startup – a spin-out from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) – has used nature’s designs as a starting point for its proprietary technology. The coating combines micro- and nano-technology elements to replicate the sunlight-absorbing capability of rose petals. Available for use with all sizes of energy systems and wavelengths of light, the coating reduces glare from every angle. It also helps extend the lifespan of panels by adding an additional layer of protection from the elements.
The laminating foil is applied during the solar panel production process and is currently in-situ in two different locations. The company encourages anyone interested in participating in retrofitting sites to get in touch for more information as the process develops. In mid-2023, the company began building its first commercial pilot production facility.
From panels that work in the shade to nanogrids that work off-grid, the versatility of solar power is showcased in a variety of innovations in Springwise’s library.
Spotted: Paper is often hailed as the perfect sustainable alternative to plastic packaging, with many consumers instinctively putting paper materials in their recycling bins without thinking. However, many paper-based products are laced with unrecyclable components, such as plastic coatings.
Now, Israeli startup Melodea has a solution – bio-based coatings that protect against water vapour, oil, and oxygen. Made from wood pulp and waste side streams from the paper industry, these 100 per cent plant-based coating solutions are completely recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable. They are suitable for use on paper, paperboard, PET plastic, and bioplastic products, and are also completely non-toxic and FDA-compliant.
Instead of absorbing water and disintegrating, or soaking up grease and becoming unrecyclable, the coatings act as barriers to keep the paper clean and dry. Melodea’s ‘VBcoat’ product resists both water and grease, as does its ‘VBseal’ coating, with the latter also providing heat-sealability to close up the packaging.
These can be used on their own or combined with the company’s ‘MelOx’ product to provide an additional oxygen barrier. Until now, most food packaging has relied on unsustainable materials like plastic because it stops the transmission of air, keeping produce inside fresher for longer. MelOx gives eco-friendly paper packaging the same essential oxygen-resistance.
Because Melodea’s solutions can be applied using standard coating technologies, they can be scaled easily and quickly, with the coatings able to protect products from chocolate and cheese to detergent and cosmetics.
In the archive, Springwise has spotted other innovations using paper to make packaging more sustainable, including a paper alternative to bubble wrap and paper bags made from urban biowaste.
Spotted: Exacerbated by recent extreme weather temperatures and drought across the country, the UK’s production of greenhouse-grown vegetables decreased in 2022 for the seventh year in a row. At the same time, the need for increased irrigation plus rising costs of fuel, energy, and plant protection products means that traditional field agricultural methods remain stressed.
Innovators everywhere are struggling to reduce carbon emissions as quickly as possible. UK agtech company Albotherm’s founding team identified greenhouses and commercial high rises as two of the areas with the greatest opportunities for savings. Set up as a means of using science for good, the company created a reversible coating for glass that transitions between transparent in cool temperatures to opaque in heat.
Because the coating changes format depending on the temperature it has been programmed to respond to, there is little to no maintenance required after application, and it can be left on year-round with no risk of blocking essential sunlight in the winter months. The coating can be set to transition at any temperature between 18 and 45 degrees Celsius.
The traditional technique of painting greenhouses with opaque white, chalk-based paint in spring and then removing it in autumn is effective at blocking heat, yet it can also limit crop growth. In contrast, Albotherm’s technology increased crop yields by up to 34 per cent in trials. And with the closing of its £1.6 million (around €1.9 million) seed funding round, the company plans to scale up its manufacturing capabilities, complete large-scale commercial pilots in 2024, and prepare for a 2025 official product launch. Further development will focus on expanding the company’s product line for use on commercial buildings, where energy efficiency could save millions in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) costs.
Two other innovations spotted in Springwise’s archive that focus on reducing HVAC costs are net-zero glass and adjustable sunshades.
American roofing firm GAF has completed the first phase of a public-private initiative that seeks to mitigate urban heat in Los Angeles through solar-reflective coating.
The GAF Cool Community Project completed the first phase of their public project in Los Angeles’ Pacoima, covering asphalt roads and public areas in a 10-block radius to see if a reflective coating might reduce the effects of urban heating.
GAF installed thousands of square feet of solar-reflective coating to public areas in Los Angeles
Members of the GAF team and its street coating arm Streetbond worked with NGOs and city officials including the Global Cool Cities Alliance, Climate Resolve, and the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Service to coat over 700,000 square feet (65,032 square metres) of the neighbourhood’s pavement.
The project was initiated to mitigate the heat in heavily paved neighbourhoods, a problem in urban areas sometimes referred to as “heat islands”.
The initiative is called the GAF Cool Community Project
“This is one of the hottest neighborhoods in Los Angeles,” said Streetbond general manager Eliot Wall.
“There’s not a lot of alternative solutions. There are not a lot of shade structures. There are not a lot of trees – things that we also believe are necessary to help combat this – but this was something that without any other structural changes you could do tomorrow.”
The coating was applied to a 10-block radius
Because asphalt needs to be sealed and coated in dark colours to reduce tire marks and glare, it traps heat and holds it at street level.
The team’s solution was to paint over roads, parking lots and recreational areas with a proprietary coating that the company says may reduce the heat effect by 10-12 degrees Fahrenheit (5.5-6.6 degrees Celsius). The coating comes in a variety of different colours, with brighter colours used for recreational areas and dark ones for the roads.
The coating can be applied directly on top of preexisting asphalt. It can be applied by hand or by a paint-spraying machine.
The coating reflects sun and mitigates the heat island effect
Instead of simply lining sections of street with the product, the team wanted to test how the coating could affect the ambient temperature of the neighbourhood as a whole.
Some of the more recreational areas within the project’s scope, such as a basketball court and public park, were coated with colourful paint mocked up in patterns approved by the residents and a mural by local artist Desiree Sanchez was commissioned to be completed with the coating.
Community members were consulted on a series of designs for the public park
Phase one of the project was completed last year and now the team is utilising a variety of measuring systems to monitor the heat in the neighbourhood as the summer approaches. Wall said that the felt effects of the coating are “pretty much instantaneous”.
“The community members themselves are saying it feels cooler,” he said.
Since the application last summer, the team has noted not only a drop of up to three degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 degrees Celsius) but changes in temperature downwind from the coated area.
The team is testing the effects of the coat through monitoring systems
GAF director of building and roof science Jennifer Keegan added that there could added benefits from cooling large urban areas beyond the experience on the street.
Typically, the conversation around cooling technologies is limited to the application of materials on roofs and for cooling inside buildings, but paved public spaces present opportunities for bringing down the heat in the area in general.
“Not only are we helping the environment with that perspective of reducing the urban heat island effect, and if we keep our cities cooler, we’re reducing our carbon footprint,” she said.
Wall and Keegan said that the initiative hopes to expand the procedure to other areas that suffer from the heat island effect.
Residents have already commented on reduced temperatures
Other products that have been introduced to help reduce heat include a “chameleon-like” facade material developed by researchers at the University of Chicago.
Last year, Dezeen contributor Smith Mordak put together a guide for different strategies to reduce urban heating, read it here.
