Read the full story at The Morning Sun.
Researchers at the Kansas Polymer Research Center at Pittsburg State University are partnering once again with the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council to create an eco-friendly version of an “everyday product” and this time it’s golf balls.
Read the full story at Sustainable Brands.
The carbon-capture experts and the high-end yoga pants purveyor have developed a waste-gas-based polyester with the same appearance, properties and functionality of virgin polyester — a lower-carbon potential game-changer for the apparel industry.
Read the full story at Small Caps.
Australian inorganic carbon material manufacturer CFoam (ASX: CFO) has entered into key partnerships with two US tertiary institutions based on enhancing the development of carbon products from coal.
The research and development agreements with Ohio University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are at an early stage and have the potential to create new markets and opportunities for CFoam as a raw materials provider.
Ohio University is researching a project related to coal-derived alternatives for traditional fibre-cementitious building materials.
The project has received US$500,000 (A$666,000) funding from the US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory which focuses on applied research for the clean production and use of domestic energy resources.
Read the full story at dezeen.
Dutch designer Teresa van Dongen has launched Aireal, an online library showcasing materials that can capture atmospheric carbon.
The fledgling library contains images and descriptions of materials developed by companies and institutes around the world that store carbon in a useful way via a process known as carbon capture and utilisation (CCU).
Materials featured include olivine, an abundant mineral that can absorb its own mass of carbon dioxide when crushed and scattered on the ground.
Read the full story at Centered.
Magnetostriction is a property of magnetic materials that causes fluorescent lights and electrical transformers to buzz. This property causes the materials to change shape or dimensions as the magnetic field changes.
Magnetostriction also plays a big part in a new material that could lead to more energy-efficient computing. The research team that developed the material is led by the University of Michigan, and researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Purdue University also are participating.
The new material is twice as magnetostrictive and much cheaper than similar materials. It could contribute to magnetostrictive chips, which would cut the energy consumption of a wide range of electronics from cell phones to huge data centers.
Read the full story from Linköping University.
Researchers have developed a stable high-conductivity polymer ink. The advance paves the way for innovative printed electronics with high energy efficiency.
Read the full story from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Scientists have designed an enzyme-activated compostable plastic that could diminish microplastics pollution. Household tap water or soil composts break the hybrid plastic material down to reusable small molecules, called monomers, in just a few days or weeks.
Duraj-Thatte, A.M., Manjula-Basavanna, A., Courchesne, NM.D. et al. (2021). “Water-processable, biodegradable and coatable aquaplastic from engineered biofilms.” Nature Chemical Biology 17, 732–738 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-021-00773-y
Abstract: Petrochemical-based plastics have not only contaminated all parts of the globe, but are also causing potentially irreversible damage to our ecosystem because of their non-biodegradability. As bioplastics are limited in number, there is an urgent need to design and develop more biodegradable alternatives to mitigate the plastic menace. In this regard, we report aquaplastic, a new class of microbial biofilm-based biodegradable bioplastic that is water-processable, robust, templatable and coatable. Here, Escherichia coli was genetically engineered to produce protein-based hydrogels, which are cast and dried under ambient conditions to produce aquaplastic, which can withstand strong acid/base and organic solvents. In addition, aquaplastic can be healed and welded to form three-dimensional architectures using water. The combination of straightforward microbial fabrication, water processability and biodegradability makes aquaplastic a unique material worthy of further exploration for packaging and coating applications.
BloombergNEF (BNEF) has announced the twelve winners of the 2021 BNEF Pioneers – early-stage companies that are pursuing exciting and important low-carbon opportunities. The winners were selected as their innovations fill important gaps in optimizing long-haul freight, making sustainable materials, tracking greenhouse gases, valuing carbon sinks and reducing energy and chemical use.
Since the inception of the BNEF Pioneers program more than a decade ago, cheap, clean technologies such as renewable energy and electric vehicles have changed the world. Although these technologies will decarbonize large parts of the world economy, there are still significant challenges to address in achieving net-zero emissions and slowing climate change. The 2020s will arguably be an even more pivotal decade in the fight against climate change, and the Pioneers competition this year has recognized transformative technology solutions filling some remaining net-zero innovation gaps. In 2021, we solicited applications from companies, non-profits and projects that addressed three climate-tech innovation areas:
The competition received over 250 applications from 36 different countries. A team of lead analysts at BNEF evaluated candidates against three criteria: the potential impact on greenhouse gas emissions and the planet; the degree of technology innovation and novelty; and the likelihood of adoption.
The 2021 BNEF Pioneers are:
Challenge 1: Managing and optimizing long-haul freight
Challenge 2: Advancing materials and techniques for sustainable products
Challenge 3: Monitoring and understanding our changing planet
Wildcards:
Claire Curry, selection committee co-chair and head of digital industry research at BloombergNEF, commented:
“This year we selected three specific areas – heavy-duty transport, materials and the climate – where BNEF believes technology must play an important role in decarbonization. For the last decade, the BNEF Pioneers award has been essential in highlighting exciting innovations in solar, wind, storage, smart grid and electric vehicles, to name a few. By focusing on specific themes each year where technology innovation is sorely needed, we hope that the competition will continue to shine a light on important, pioneering innovations.
“We had some particularly strong applicants, making it both fun and challenging to select the winners. We have chosen nine winners across the three main challenge categories that we believe highlight some important innovation gaps in transportation, materials and climate. While much transport will electrify or turn to green hydrogen, the heavy-duty goods sector will continue burning fossil fuels for years to come. This makes optimizing route planning, reducing idle time and eliminating empty miles truly essential in the near-term. Our winners Convoy, Ontruck and Nautilus Labs are leading the charge in tackling these problems.
“Displacing petrochemicals from everyday products will be a difficult task, even after we are no longer burning oil as a fuel. Displacing petrochemical feedstock with biomass, or even with added carbon dioxide, will create carbon sinks, trapping CO2 in plastics, fabrics and chemicals. Our winner Cemvita Factory is looking to do just this. Sustainability issues in the petrochemicals sector include inefficient, energy-intense, manufacturing processes and poor recycling options, which our winners Via Separations and Pyrowave are looking to solve respectively.
“Finally, to truly address climate change we need to understand a lot more about our planet, track emissions more closely and quantify the natural carbon sinks in forests, seas and land. Our winners for the third challenge category are all using different technologies, including hardware and software combinations, to track our changing planet from the sky (Planet), to spot industrial emissions on the ground (QLM Technologies) and to quantify our valuable carbon sinks (Pachama).
“Alongside the three key challenge areas we also picked three wildcard winners – innovations that did not fit in the selected challenge areas but are each pioneering and unique in their own way. I’m excited to see the future impact on marine life of ECOncrete’s coastal infrastructure invention; the significant emissions impact that 75F will make on commercial buildings; and the exciting future of sustainable agriculture that Pivot Bio is swiftly building with its microbial fertilizer.”
Video interviews with each of the Pioneers will be posted once per week on the BNEF website at https://about.bnef.com/bnefpioneers/ starting in the second half of May.
Read the full story from the University of Louisville.
A research study led by the University of Kentucky Department of Chemistry has discovered a new way to dramatically boost the performance of electrically conductive polymers. The discovery is considered a significant step forward in the development of organic thermoelectric devices, which can convert waste heat into useful electric energy.
Conductive polymers, which are electrically conductive plastics, have the potential to transform current electronic devices, such as smart watches, by powering the devices based on the user’s body heat. They are also attractive for converting waste heat from coal-fired power plants or heat from a car’s engine into electricity.
