Transport is top-of-mind for a lot of in August – the height of summer season vacation season. But one mode of transport that hardly ever options in most individuals’s every day lives is transport. The majority of the world’s ships are used to maneuver not individuals, however heavy cargo, and the sector stays closely depending on fossil fuels. Alternative fuels like ammonia and methanol are on the playing cards, however, within the meantime, our first innovation of the month is popping to wind energy to decarbonise maritime operations.
If you probably did go on vacation by automobile, then you definitely’re extra possible than ever to have gone in an electrical automobile (EV). The vitality density of EV batteries has plateaued for some time now, however our second innovation of the month seems to be set to reverse that pattern, with a brand new kind of anode that might pave the best way for EVs with better vary.
Like batteries, the cost of photo voltaic PV has come down dramatically over the previous 10 years. But now, in our third innovation, researchers are mimicking the design of leaves to make photo voltaic PV much more environment friendly.
When we’re on the transfer throughout vacation season, we frequently choose up meals on the go. Paper meals packaging would possibly seam extra sustainable than plastic, however typically it’s laced with unrecyclable parts, resembling plastic coatings. Our fourth innovation of the month gives a bio-based various.
Meanwhile, the tip of August is usually a time when individuals discard their used vacation garments, which frequently find yourself in landfill. Our fifth innovation is a strategy to flip these discarded garments into helpful supplies.
And lastly, excessive sizzling climate this 12 months has highlighted the lethal difficulty of water shortage. Our ultimate innovation is a system that makes use of industrial waste warmth to drag water from the air.
Cargill-backed boats with inflexible sails
Image: Cargill
Shipping is a troublesome sector to decarbonise, with extra 99% of complete vitality demand for worldwide transport historically coming from oil. But now, innovators within the area are going again to the long run by leveraging a brand new era of wind propulsion know-how to cut back fossil gasoline consumption and emissions from transport.
A key milestone for this avenue of innovation was handed this month, when Mitsubishi Corporation’s Pyxis Ocean, which was chartered by Cargill, set sail for its maiden voyage. The ship, is the primary to be retrofitted with two ‘WindWings’ – giant inflexible wing sails measuring as much as 37.5 metres in peak which might be designed to be fitted to the deck of cargo ships.
Produced for this mission by Yara Marine Technologies, the WindWings are anticipated to generate common gasoline financial savings of 30% if fitted on a new-build ship – which isn’t the case with the Pyxis Ocean, which is a retrofit. However, a key objective of the WindWings mission, which has the backing of the European Union, is to supply an answer to cut back emissions from present vessels on condition that 55% of the world’s bunker fleets are 9 years previous or older.
In the long run, the WindWings might be mixed with various fuels, resembling ammonia or methanol, to unlock much more carbon financial savings.
High-tech anodes for next-gen EV batteries
Image: NanoGraf
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are ubiquitous, powering every part from moveable shopper electronics to electrical autos (EVs). But, whereas Li-ion batteries boast vitality densities a lot greater than lead-acid batteries, will increase of their vitality density are plateauing. However, a brand new kind of anode, produced by NanoGraf Technologies, might change this.
NanoGraf, a spinout from Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory, has developed a strategy to vastly enhance the vitality density of Li-ion batteries by changing the traditional graphite-based anode with one primarily based on a proprietary, doped silicon alloy with a protecting inorganic and natural coating. The mixture helps stabilise the fabric throughout cost and discharge.
While standard graphite-based anodes provide a capability of round 372 milliampere-hours per gram of mass (mAh/g), the NanoGraf materials can obtain capacities as excessive as 1,400 mAh/g. This is a possible game-changer in battery manufacture, permitting longer-lasting, higher-energy, and higher-power Li-ion batteries. In addition, the brand new anode will be simply dropped into present battery manufacturing processes.
A bio-inspired solar energy leaf
Image: Dr Gan Huang
Photovoltaic (PV) photo voltaic panels convert the solar’s vitality into electrical energy. Between 2009 and 2019, their value fell by 89^%, and now a analysis workforce at Imperial College London has turned to nature for inspiration to make them even cheaper.
The new PV leaf is made utilizing low-cost supplies, and experiments have proven that it generates greater than 10% extra electrical energy than standard photo voltaic panels.
Key to the design’s success is its mimicry of the transpiration processes exhibited by pure leaves to effectively take away warmth from the PV cells. The PV leaf makes use of hydrogels to simulate sponge cells and pure fibres that cushion leaf vein bundles.
These cooling strategies, get rid of the necessity for management items, followers, pumps and efficient porous supplies. The PV leaf can be adaptable to exterior temperatures and photo voltaic circumstances and is ready to produce further freshwater and thermal vitality.
A biodegradable coating for paper packaging
Image: Melodea
Paper is usually hailed as the right sustainable various to plastic packaging, with many customers instinctively placing paper supplies of their recycling bins with out pondering. However, many paper-based merchandise are laced with unrecyclable parts, resembling plastic coatings.
Israeli startup Melodea has an answer – bio-based coatings that defend in opposition to water vapour, oil and oxygen. Made from wooden pulp and waste aspect streams from the paper business, these totally plant-based coating options are fully recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable. They are appropriate to be used on paper, paperboard, PET plastic, and bioplastic merchandise, and are additionally fully non-toxic and FDA-compliant.
Instead of absorbing water and disintegrating, or absorbing grease and changing into unrecyclable, the coatings act as boundaries to maintain the paper clear and dry. Melodea’s ‘VBcoat’ product resists each water and grease, as does its ‘VBseal’ coating, with the latter additionally offering heat-sealability to shut up the packaging.
These can be utilized on their very own or mixed with the corporate’s ‘MelOx’ product to supply a further oxygen barrier. Until now, most meals packaging has relied on unsustainable supplies like plastic as a result of it stops the transmission of air, conserving produce inside brisker for longer.
Because Melodea’s options will be utilized utilizing commonplace coating applied sciences, they are often scaled simply and shortly. The might have purposes in sectors resembling cleansing merchandise and cosmetics in addition to foods and drinks.
Turning used garments into bioethanol and cellulose
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimates that lower than 2% of the 100 billion clothes made every year will likely be recycled into new textile merchandise. Recycling in different methods can be unusual; the overwhelming majority of used garments find yourself as waste.
However, one startup is providing a brand new strategy to textile waste. The Berlin-based feminine co-founded firm, Re-Fresh Global, is popping discarded clothes into new uncooked supplies. These supplies can be utilized to create merchandise like cosmetics, vehicles, packaging, prescription drugs, fibres and furnishings.
First, the corporate makes use of its automated know-how to kind and separate textile waste, relying on its materials composition and color. Then, Re-fresh’s patented biotechnology transforms shredded textile fibres into industrial portions of recent and extremely versatile assets.
This course of creates three new uncooked materials varieties: nanocellulose, ethanol, and sanitised textile pulp. The nanocellulose is robust and extremely versatile, that means it may be utilized in objects together with packaging, paper, and prescription drugs. The pure bioethanol (alcohol) has varied helpful purposes throughout the sweetness, sanitation, and biofuel industries. And lastly, the textile pulp, constructed from recycled pure and artificial fibres, can be utilized within the manufacturing of recent fibres, whether or not that be for automobile upholstery or sound-absorbing office interiors.
New know-how to reap water from the air
It was lately World Water Week, which highlighted how there are lots of locations on this planet the place clear water shouldn’t be available. While a number of elements like insufficient or broken infrastructure, poor useful resource administration, and air pollution are contributing to low water provide, local weather change can be enjoying an element.
This is the place NovNat Tech is available in. With its know-how, NovNat goals to enhance water safety and increase local weather change resilience. This Birmingham-based firm has developed a novel ‘atmospheric water harvester’ powered by waste warmth from industrial operations, to assist present dependable and constant water entry by extracting water from the air at scale. NovNat’s proprietary porous supplies act as a nano-scale selective sponge to soak atmospheric humidity and convert it into water.
Having been rigorously examined, the harvester’s supplies have demonstrated breakthrough efficiency in capturing and releasing water from the air – a lot quicker and with much less vitality required than pre-existing atmospheric water era (AWG) methods. The firm is presently creating a prototype AWG system, funded by Innovate UK, designed to ship water on the go for rescue and navy autos.
Springwise is edie’s innovation content material accomplice. It is the worldwide innovation intelligence platform for constructive and sustainable change. With a rising database of 11,000+ improvements, Springwise is the place of file for innovation that issues. Springwise.com.
