Imagine no longer having to pop out to the shop for new batteries, but instead being able to print up a few on your home printer.
If we’re not there yet, we’re certainly closer: researchers in Germany have developed a new battery that’s thinner than a millimeter, lighter than a gram and can be produced cost-effectively through a printing process.
They compare the revolutionary aspect of the process to today’s online banking capabilities: where you once had to race to the bank for every money transfer and every bank statement, you can now easily conduct transactions from home using your PC.
The new printable battery was developed by a research team led by Reinhard Baumann of the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems ENAS in Chemnitz, together with colleagues from TU Chemnitz and Menippos GmbH.
“Our goal is to be able to mass produce the batteries at a price of single-digit cent range each,” said Andreas Willert, group manager at ENAS.
The characteristics of the battery differ significantly from those of conventional batteries. The printable version weighs less than one gram on the scales, is not even one millimeter thick and can therefore be integrated into bank cards, for example. The battery contains no mercury and is in this respect environmentally friendly. Its voltage is 1.5 V, which lies within the normal range. By placing several batteries in a row, voltages of 3 V, 4.5 V and 6 V can also be achieved.
The new type of battery is composed of different layers: a zinc anode and a manganese cathode, among others. Zinc and manganese react with one another and produce electricity. However, the anode and the cathode layer dissipate gradually during this chemical process. Therefore, the battery is best suitable for applications which have a limited life span or a limited power requirement, for instance greeting cards.
The batteries are printed using a silk-screen printing method similar to that used for t-shirts and signs. A kind of rubber lip presses the printing paste through a screen onto the substrate. A template covers the areas that are not to be printed on. Through this process it is possible to apply comparatively large quantities of printing paste, and the individual layers are slightly thicker than a hair.
The researchers have already produced the batteries on a laboratory scale. At the end of this year, the first products could possibly be finished.
Unveiled in Cairo, Egypt, this week, InterHome was developed by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire. The structure incorporates modular custom design units and draws on standard home automation systems which have been adapted so that the house “learns” and “adapts” to its users’ lifestyles.
The home makes its debut at the finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup being held in Cairo from 3 - 7 July.
The prototype of the home, developed in a doll’s house, integrates embedded devices with the industry-standard X10, which provides convenience and security to homeowners and also enables them to reduce energy, saving up to £300 a year and reducing greenhouse emissions.
InterHome incorporates an intuitive touch-screen user control panel that also allows the house to be monitored and controlled using Web browsers, windows mobile and any SMS-capable mobile phone.
“InterHome improves on its competitors by being modular, adaptable and able to ‘learn’ our routines,” said Johann Siau, senior lecturer at the University’s School of Electronic, Communication & Electrical Engineering. “The technology enables the system to learn rapidly when we need the lights on or whether we are at home or at work and how the house needs to be at certain times of the day. If we forget to lock the front door or turn off the lights, it can text us and our response can reprogramme the system.”
Through this approach, InterHome can eradicate wasted energy within UK homes and make a difference to CO2 emission statistics when installed in enough houses, according to the research team.
The prototype is now ready to be adopted by industry. The team led by Siau has already been approached by several companies.
“The Imagine Cup world-wide final sees 400 of the smartest technical students from across the world compete head-to-head for the coveted trophy,” said Andrew Sithers, academic relations manager for Microsoft UK. “I’m delighted that Hertfordshire will be representing the UK at this event. Their Intelligent Home project demonstrates how innovations in software and hardware can be combined to produce a highly flexible integrated solution that has great go-to-market potential.”
QuantaSol, established in June 2007 as a spin-out of Imperial College London, is an independent designer and manufacturer of strain-balanced quantum-well solar cells.
Developed in just two years, QuantaSol’s new single-junction device has been independently tested by Fraunhofer ISE as achieving 28.3-per cent efficiency at greater than 500 suns.
“Our technology is the industry’s best kept secret,” said Kevin Arthur, CEO of QuantaSol. “This is the first time that anyone has successfully combined high efficiency with ease of manufacture, historically a bug-bear of the solar cell industry. We’re now gearing up to provide multi-junction cells of even higher efficiencies as early as Q1 2010.”
QuantaSol’s approach combines several nanostructures of two or more different alloys to obtain synthetic crystals that overcome the problems associated with current solar cell designs. It also greatly enhances the photovoltaic conversion efficiency, according to the firm.
The company, which has a development laboratory in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, last week completed a £2 million second round of funding. It now plans to concentrate on cutting the cost of ownership of solar energy by moving to multi-junction devices.
Solar cell manufacturers need to find a crystalline semiconductor material that exhibits the optimum light absorption range, is a good absorber of solar radiation (silicon, for instance, is weak), has essentially the same lattice spacing of commercially available substrates like gallium arsenide or germanium, and can be deposited seamlessly on those substrates to form a unique artificial crystal with no defects or unwanted impurities, using commercially viable crystal-growth technologies. None of the known semiconductor compounds or alloys can meet all these conditions at the same time.
QuantaSol’s approach aims to overcome the problems currently associated with today’s solar cell designs and also to enhance the photovoltaic conversion efficiency.
“The Environmental Protection Agency is laying the foundations for a greener economy through active support for environmental research and innovation,” said EPA Director General Mary Kelly.
The report outlines some practical outcomes in the areas of environmental technologies and innovation from the investment made to date by the EPA through its Science, Technology, Research and Innovation (STRIVE) programme. It also provides a roadmap showing where further progress is required nationally to meet the environmental and economic challenges ahead.
The EPA sees a strong need to continue to prioritise environmental research and innovation investment with the aim of:
Supporting the continued development of the environmental goods and services sector;
Contributing to environmental protection by delivering applicable and relevant solutions, information and knowledge; and
Supporting research and the integration of eco-innovation into all relevant sectors.
“While Ireland is facing unprecedented economic challenges, it is also the case that significant environmental challenges remain,” Kelly said. “The EPA STRIVE programme addresses both sets of challenges by improving the delivery of positive environmental outcomes while fostering a strong innovation culture, particularly in the environmental technologies area. Researchers and businesses are developing technologies that will deliver environmental benefits while improving competitiveness. We are confident that progress in this area can position Ireland at the forefront in one of the most rapidly growing international markets.”
The EPA STRIVE programme provides two types of support: support for researchers and innovators in the environmental technologies sector, and support for businesses participating in its Cleaner, Greener Production Programme.
The environmental technologies sector is one of the fastest growing markets internationally. Since 2005, the EPA programme has funded some 200 new researchers and innovators based in universities and industry. The report profiles several successes and impacts of research and innovation undertaken to date. These include high-value products from waste, energy from sewage treatment, smart filters that can remove metal ions from water, pollution sensors and a sustainable, ecological high-performance computer.
Stop snickering already: hemp is proving to be a sustainable, low-carbon Super Fibre that could help the UK and Europe dramatically reduce their carbon footprints in numerous ways.
How many ways? We review five of the coolest here:
Car Parts
Norfolk-based Lotus Cars uses locally farmed hemp, among other sustainable materials, in the body panels and trim of its Eco Elise vehicle. The car also features a hemp hard top equipped with solar panels that provide power to the electrical systems.
Green Houses
Working with a consortium led by the University of Bath’s BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, researchers are working to develop the use of hemp-lime construction materials in the UK.
The hemp plant stores carbon during its growth and this, combined with the low carbon footprint of lime and its very efficient insulating properties, gives the material a “better-than-zero carbon” footprint, according to researchers.
Lightweight, Insulating Concrete
In France, hemp is being used to make lightweight concrete that also has excellent insulating properties.
Fibres from the co-operative company Chanvrière de l’Aube are used for making insulating panels and lightweight concrete. In fact, the co-operative has developed breeze-blocks containing hemp.
Chanvrière de l’Aube is a group of slightly more than 300 hemp farmers in eastern France who process the production from 6,000 hectares of hemp. Industrial hemp has traditionally been grown in France for the paper industry.
Children’s Toys
Researchers at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have developed a “liquid wood” made with lignin and flax that could offer a non-petroleum-based alternative material for children’s toys.
In fact, they have optimised the plastic in such a way that it is even suitable for products such as Nativity figurines (right), which were produced in cooperation with Schleich GmbH.
Biodegradable Cigarettes
A while back, two students at Northumbria University came up with the idea of biodegradable “eco-cigarettes” made of paper from recycled hemp.
Regular cigarettes take up to 12 years to biodegrade.
The hemp-based, quicker-degrading cigarette was developed by Lisa Hanking and Lucy Denham, who won joint first prize for their idea in a 2004 sustainability project organised by Northumbria’s School of Design and Chester-le-Street District Council.
The ETH and IBM today announced plans for the innovative system — “Aquasar” — which is expected to decrease the carbon footprint of the institute by up to 85 per cent. That’s equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 30 tonnes a year.
Set to begin operation in 2010, Aquasar is expected to reduce overall energy consumption by up to 40 per cent. The system is based on long-term joint research of ETH and IBM scientists in the field of chip-level cooling as well as on a concept for “water-cooled data centers with direct energy re-use” invented by scientists at IBM’s Zurich Lab.
The water-cooled supercomputer will have a peak performance of about 10 teraflops.
Outside of the dismal finance situation at the moment, the daily news from the world of cleantech tends to sound overwhelmingly positive: Researchers here have made a breakthrough that could lead to super-batteries. Scientists there have found a way to potentially produce hydrogen fuel cheaply and easily. A startup here is working to engineer bacteria that can pump out biofuels. An initiative there plans to plaster the Sahara with solar cells and generate enough power for all of Europe.
In the face of such dire news on the environmental side — climate change, biodiversity loss, water shortages, peak oil — cleantech seems like a soothing balm, a reassuring antidote that promises all our scariest looming problems will shortly be solved.
But will they?
In reality, cleantech advances don’t result in commercial-scale, affordable and widely adopted technologies as frequently as we might believe. Sure, new and innovative technology makes it to the marketplace on a daily basis, mostly in the form of electronic gadgets such as iPhones, Kindle readers, iPods and Wiis. But how many people in your neighborhood drive electric cars or produce their own energy via wind turbines, neither of which are exactly hot-off-the-press clean technologies? How much longer will it take before hydrogen, carbon capture and artificial photosynthesis are household technologies?
Does this fall into “the trap of underestimating society’s capacity to meet future fuel challenges through innovation and conservation,” which was Newsweek’s critique of Canadian analyst Jeff Rubin’s new book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller? Or is doomer-engineer Dmitri Orlov right when he says, “I know roughly how long it takes to innovate: come up with the idea, convince people that it is worth trying, try it, fail a few times, eventually succeed, and then phase it in to real use. It takes decades. We do not have decades. We have already failed to innovate our way out of this.”?
We’re playing devil’s advocate here and would like to know what you think: Can cleantech save the planet in time or not?
The cement industry is one of the most contaminating in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. The process of making cement also produces dioxins, furans and heavy metals, all of which are harmful to the environment and human health.
The URV researchers says the solid waste produced by water treatment plants in large cities could be used as an alternative fuel in cement production. They tested the method at a cement plant in Vallcarca (Catalonia), which has been producing cement for more than 100 years, and confirmed it is “the best option for getting rid of mud that would have had to be dumped elsewhere, while also powering the plant.”
“As this mud is already waste, burning it does not enter into the atmospheric CO2 emissions assigned to each country under the Kyoto Protocol,” said José Luis Domingo, lead author of the study and director of URV’s Toxicology and Environmental Health Laboratory.
Up to 20% of the fossil fuel energy used at the Catalan plant has now been substituted for the fuel from waste water treatment plant mud.
From an economic point of view, the researchers will not say that cement plants could increase their profits by using this method, but they do point out, “They will not have to pay anything to exceed their agreed emissions.”
The cement plant experiment led to a 140,000-tonne reduction in CO2 emissions between 2003 and 2006, and will have limited the potential deaths from exposure to chemical pollutants, according to the researchers. In addition, their study finds that using this “green fuel” would reduce the cancer rate by 4.56 per million inhabitants.
Polymer-based cleaning company Xeros and Cambridge Consultants have developed what they say is the world’s first “virtually waterless” laundry washing machine prototype. By saving up to 90 per cent of water compared to conventional machines, the Xeros process has the potential to reduce the cost of washing whilst also dramatically cutting carbon emissions.
The Xeros process replaces the majority of the water used for washing with reusable nylon polymer beads. The beads enable the machine to clean clothes in less time than traditional machines, whilst also using 30 per cent less energy and significantly less detergent than normally required. The electricity saving is increased further by reducing the need to tumble dry, assuming the end user currently does this in addition to washing.
The discovery that certain types of polymer beads could be used as a cleaning agent was made by Stephen Burkinshaw at the University of Leeds. Whilst the technology had been proven in a laboratory environment, various hurdles still needed to be addressed in order to commercialise the technology.
The Cambridge Consultants team was asked to prove the efficacy of the cleaning technology once scaled to a commercial product, and then to work out how the beads could be effectively removed from the damp clothes at the end of each cycle. Within six months’ time, the Cambridge Consultants team was able to successfully demonstrate both principles in action, and developed an initial demonstrator.
To prove the technology’s environmental credentials, Xeros commissioned an independent Life Cycle Assessment from URS Corporation. That report found that the process has the potential to display a significantly smaller carbon footprint than that of a conventional wash.
For the UK alone, it offers a positive potential environmental impact equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.
“Whilst we are still at a relatively early stage of this development, we have demonstrated that it is possible to develop a commercially viable washing machine that is capable of delivering all the benefits that Xeros expects from its revolutionary technology,” said Nathan Wrench, programme manager at Cambridge Consultants.
Xeros aims to have a commercially viable product in production by the end of 2010. The company’s first target will be the commercial washing market, including hotels, care homes, and high street washing outlets. Downstream, the company will look to license the technology to domestic machine manufacturers, enabling them to capture the considerably larger domestic market. The global market for laundry products next year is expected to reach around $50 billion.
“With pressure building globally for consumers to cut down both on water usage and greenhouse emissions, the time is right for a new range of devices that help us all reduce the environmental impact of washing without compromising the cleaning results we all expect,” said Bill Westwater, CEO of Xerox. “Clearly there is much pressure to get a working product into the market and I’m delighted with the speed in which Cambridge Consultants have managed to get us to this key milestone.”
Xeros is a start-up from the University of Leeds, and is backed by investor IP Group plc.
Aquamarine Power has won the “Innovator Award 2009″ for its Oyster® wave energy converter at this year’s British Renewable Energy Awards.
Aquamarine competed against seven other shortlisted nominees to win the award, which recognises excellence in innovative features of concept and design; achievement in meeting original objectives and continued proven success of the device; and the demonstration of exceptional effort of those involved in bringing Oyster® through development, testing and towards to commercialisation.
“Our Oyster wave energy device is at the forefront of global technical innovation and will harness the sea’s powerful energy in the most efficient and effective way,” said Martin McAdam, CEO of Aquamarine Power. “The seas around our shores are our most valuable asset and future generations will depend on finding suitable alternatives to oil and gas to produce power which will ultimately run out. The reliability of marine energy makes it an ideal energy source. Oyster has already proven that and has successfully exported power to the national grid for the first time.”
Oyster® is currently in the first stage of deployment. The installation jack-up barge “Deep Diver” is on site at Billia Croo, Orkney, and the base of the device, known as the Pile Connector Frame (PCF), has been placed on the seabed. Drilling operations are now under way to attach the PCF to the seabed.
Other award winners include:
The RE-Charge Scheme (Kirklees Council);
Renewable Energy Tariff Campaign (Friends of Earth and the Tariff coalition.);
Dulas Ltd. (Company award);
Marine Current Turbines Ltd. (Developer award);
Future Heating (Installer award for Birmingham Council Care Homes);
Imagine no longer having to pop out to the shop for new batteries, but instead being able to print up a few on your home printer.
The UK can now boast it’s created 
England-based QuantaSol Ltd. says it’s developed what it likely 
The Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a new report title, 
Stop snickering already: hemp is proving to be a sustainable, low-carbon Super Fibre that could help the UK and Europe dramatically reduce their carbon footprints in numerous ways.
In France, hemp is being used to make 
Researchers at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have developed a “liquid wood” made with lignin and flax that could offer a non-petroleum-based 
A 
Outside of the dismal finance situation at the moment, the daily news from the world of cleantech tends to sound overwhelmingly positive: Researchers here have made a breakthrough that could lead to super-batteries. Scientists there have found a way to potentially produce hydrogen fuel cheaply and easily. A startup here is working to engineer bacteria that can pump out biofuels. An initiative there plans to plaster the Sahara with solar cells and generate enough power for all of Europe.
The “mud” left over from waste water treatment could 
Polymer-based cleaning company Xeros and Cambridge Consultants have developed what they say is the world’s first “virtually waterless” laundry washing machine prototype. By saving up to 90 per cent of water compared to conventional machines, the Xeros process has the potential to reduce the cost of washing whilst also dramatically cutting carbon emissions.
Aquamarine Power has won the