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Making hi-tech nano-crystals out of organic fishing waste
CategoriesSustainable News

Making hi-tech nano-crystals out of organic fishing waste

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Material waste from the fishing industry, namely crustacean waste, amounts to around 6-8 million tonnes a year. One company is looking to use this waste to solve the problem of material alternatives to plastics. 

The present problem with plastic packaging films is that it’s difficult to achieve high strength, low permeability, and recyclability all in one material. The current market caters to low permeability and high strength but neglects recyclability, with these materials taking decades to be broken down and releasing harmful microplastics in the process. This is where Neptune Nanotechnologies comes in. 

The company is using its proprietary technology to transform the waste material of crabs, shrimps, and lobsters into highly valuable chitin nanocrystals. Neptune Nanotechnologies highlights that these nanocrystals are stronger than steel, lighter than plastic, and fully bio-based and biodegradable. The fully organic crystals replace current additives to base materials, like plastic and composites, that can be an obstacle to a product’s biodegradability.

The crystals solve the problems of performance by making the final nano-structured materials stronger, but equally, the weight reductions allow better efficiency and CO2 prevention downstream in transport. Neptune Nanotechnologies’ crystals have similar characteristics to other nanotech alternatives, including graphene and carbon nanotubes, but have the added bonus of also being biodegradable. 

This high performance means the crystals are suitable for a range of applications, like aerospace and automotive composites, high-barrier films and packaging, 3D-printed materials, and biomedical devices. Neptune Nanotechnologies is currently testing its technologies in these industries and is hoping to become completely commercialised soon. 

There are a number of innovators looking to rid the world of harmful, often plastic-based, materials. In the archive, Springwise has also spotted one startup that turns organic waste into planet-friendly plastic and another that creates footwear from food waste.

Written By: Archie Cox

Reference

A hi-tech kite harnessing the power of high-level winds
CategoriesSustainable News

A hi-tech kite harnessing the power of high-level winds

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: In 2022, wind was the fastest-growing renewable energy source behind solar, and demand for wind power is only going to increase as economies transition to net zero by 2050. What is more, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the average annual growth rate of wind electricity generation needs to get to around 17 per cent to meet the agency’s Net Zero 2050 scenario. 

One sticking point for wind energy, however, is that it’s subject to weather changes, and so can be inconsistent. Hoping to make wind energy more powerful and reliable is Norwegian firm Kitemill, which is tapping into previously underutilised and untapped energy by harnessing the power of wind high above the ground. 

Essentially, the firm’s new KM2 system – an enhancement of the company’s previous KM1 prototype – functions much like a kite. The “kite”, tethered to a generator on land, resembles an unmanned plane with a wingspan of 16 metres. The system has four propellors that are used for about two minutes during both take-off and landing, so that the kite can take off even in low wind conditions on the floor. It is also fully autonomous, so requires no more attention than conventional wind turbines.

Where the KM2 diverges from a conventional wind turbine is in the fact that the latter is fixed, and so suffers from reduced activity in low wind conditions, whereas the KM2 system can change its position. The kite uses LIDAR readings of local wind conditions to direct its altitude and more consistently harness the wind at far higher altitudes, up to 500 metres off the ground.

Video source Kitemill

Kitemill is set to install 12 of its KM2 units for the €7.5m Norse Airborne Wind Energy Project (NAWEP), backed by the European Union (EU) Innovation Fund. 

Springwise has also spotted similar renewable energy projects in the archive, like an underwater kite that harnesses the energy of the tides and heat pumps that harvest the energy of sound.

Written By: Archie Cox

Reference

Hi-tech fluid makes pumped hydro more affordable
CategoriesSustainable News

Hi-tech fluid makes pumped hydro more affordable

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Clean energy sources, like solar and wind, are much better for the environment than fossil fuels, but they are less reliable. Increasingly, companies are exploring pumped hydropower as a means of storing renewable energy. But today’s conventional low-density hydro-power systems don’t use renewables to their full efficiency. Enter startup RheEnergise.

Video source RheEnergise

RheEnergise’s High-Density Hydro system pumps a special, hi-tech fluid uphill between storage tanks at times of low energy demand and cost. As energy prices rise, the fluid is released downhill through turbines, which generates electricity to supply the grid. 

RheEnergise’s mineral-rich fluid is two and a half times denser than water, which is normally used in pumped hydropower. As a result, it contains two and a half times the energy and can be used on a hill that is two and a half times smaller. This means the RheEnergise system does not need high mountains to work, leading to more potential sites and substantial reductions in construction costs.

RheEnergise recently received a £1 million grant (about €1.1 million) from the UK Government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio. It will use this investment to explore whether minerals or waste materials that do not need to be imported can be used in its fluid. 

The company plans to deploy a demonstrator close to Plymouth by the middle of next year. It is also pursuing other opportunities across the UK and Europe and expects to have its first five-megawatt grid-scale project in operation as early as 2026. RheEnergise has estimated that there are around 6,500 sites in the UK alone that could use the system.

Springwise has spotted other innovations utilising hydropower, including small turbines for use in any river, and a generator that works where fresh water meets the sea.

Written By: Jessica Bradley

Reference

Programme trains prisoners to be hi-tech farmers
CategoriesSustainable News

Programme trains prisoners to be hi-tech farmers

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Social justice organisation Impact Justice has recently introduced its newest initiative: Growing Justice. The programme connects incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals seeking fairly paid secure work, with the cutting-edge technology of vertical farming.

Working with vertical farming experts—Skout Strategy and Agritecture—Impact Justice is designing and building two new farms – one located in a women’s prison in central California, and the other at the organisation’s Oakland headquarters. Each farm is modular, built in a shipping container, and hydroponically grows a variety of greens for use in the prison kitchen.

Farm employees will learn about all aspects of indoor farming, from the conditions needed to grow a range of foodstuffs, to the technological and mechanical processes that run the systems. The education that employees receive is rigorous and designed to provide the necessary knowledge and expertise for a career in the industry, including the foundations for starting their own business. The food being grown should also help to improve the overall healthfulness of prison menus, as well as provide incarcerated individuals with a direct connection to nature they would otherwise be unable to access.

Springwise has spotted many vertical farm facilities run by AI and at various stages of automation. Because of this, people new to the industry learn just as much about technology as they do about farming, which in the long run, could provide improved resilience in future employment.

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference

A hi-tech factory for sustainable, modular houses
CategoriesSustainable News

A hi-tech factory for sustainable, modular houses

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Modular housebuilder TopHat, which claims to be the UK’s first zero-embodied-carbon home builder, recently announced that it will be opening a hi-tech home building facility in Corby, Northampton next year. The new factory will be 650,000 square feet in size and will incorporate the latest in robotic technology.

TopHat was founded in 2016 and began production in early 2018 at its manufacturing facility in South Derbyshire. The company builds modular, zero-carbon homes with a sustainable core. The company claims their homes have less than one-twenty-seventh the embodied carbon of a traditionally built home. To achieve this, the company uses low-carbon materials, such as timber, while reducing waste and travel at every stage.

One way that TopHat achieves its low-carbon usage is through the streamlined logistics and lean manufacturing techniques that are made possible by building modular homes in a factory using robotics. The company is also able to tailor solutions to clients, acting as either a supplier, contractor, or developer. The first residential site to use TopHat’s product was the historic Kitchener Barracks in Chatham, Kent, which opened in 2019. The company has also seen a £75 million (around €89 million) capital investment from Goldman Sachs, which has helped to finance the new factory.

There is no end of creative proposals for developing housing that is both more affordable and more sustainable. Springwise has often covered innovations in this space. Some of the most recent have included carbon-neutral tiny homes, all-timber buildings and the use of tech to maximise efficiency and sustainability. 

Written By: Lisa Magloff

11th July 2022

Website: tophat.io

Contact: tophat.io/contact-us

Reference