10 Exciting Sustainable Innovations

There has never been a greater push for developing sustainable products as there is today. With the year almost coming to an end, I thought it would be interesting to do some reasearch on running sustainability-related projects. Science and innovation are crucial to providing the solutions we need to meet the climate targets. I found a lot of inspiring and promising projects and selected the ones I found the most exciting!

AgMonitor

The american company Agmonitor, developed a farming decision-support tool that helps farmers to solve practical problems in agriculture. It detects leaks and helps farmers to improve yield, reduce water, fertilizer, and energy inputs. Their data mining platform was tested on over 4,000 acres of farmed land between 2015 and 2017. The results achieved are promising with an increase of 9% in water use efficiency (yield to water application) across alfalfa, almond, tomato, etc. PumpMonitor reduces the energy intensity of pumping but it varies by farms and by types of irrigation systems. The total reduction in energy varies from 9% to 33% with a weighted average per acre of 13%.

Seabin

Based in Australia, the Seabin Project provides practical and tangible solutions to reduce the plastic in our oceans. The Seabin V is an ocean garbage bin that works like a large pool skimmer. It is powered from shore (requiring access to electricity) and uses a 110 or 220 V motor to pump water to create a vortex, sucking debris out of the water and into a catch-bag within the bin, pushing the cleaned water back out. They have already removed 2,464,949 kg of plastic from our oceans.

Infinite Cooling

Infinite Cooling, a Swiss award-winning startup, is mitigating water scarcity around the world. The company has developed an add-on process to capture the cooling tower water vapor. 20 percent of all water used globally is in manufacturing sites and power plants, and much of it escapes as high-density vapor from industrial cooling towers. By closing the water-cycle loop at industrial facilities, Infinite Cooling helps customers save millions of euros and millions of liters of water annually. This technology reduces water consumption in evaporative cooling tower systems by over 20% and enables $1M annual savings in water sourcing and water treatment costs for a 600 MW system.

Wind Catcher

Developed by the danish start-up KiteX, Wind Catcher is a one-of-a-kind portable wind turbine that is made from recycled fibre and takes just 15 minutes to set up. Weighing 10 kg, it is portable and can produce up to 600W - enough to charge an e-bike or boil water. This device is perfect for camping!

See O2 Energy

See O2 Energy is a Canadian startup working to efficiently convert carbon dioxide and water into marketable and clean value-added products using reversible fuel cell technology. The startup is developing reversible solid oxide cells (RSOFCs) that enable the electrochemical conversion of water to hydrogen and carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. This results in the production of syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen which is later used for generating power or heat. This solution makes it possible to effectively capture CO2 and reuse it.

Save Your Wardrobe

Save Your Wardrobe is a British FashionTech startup that developed an application to help customers digitise their wardrobe comfortably and effortlessly. The app learns customers'​ behaviours and recommends new outfits based on what they own. It also recommends creative ways to up-cycle the life of their customers' clothes through 3rd party services in the app (cleaning, alteration, selling, donation, recycling) and helps people feel better about their clothes through performance and social rewards.

Mirreco

The Australian company Mirreco is focused on providing solutions that capture, store, and utilise carbon efficiently, and incorporate innovative nano-technologies to generate power. By blending hemp with proprietary polymers, the technology completes a carbon-storing polymer chain for producing high-performance construction products. From paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, food, and fuel, industrial hemp provides several applications. As one of the fastest-growing biomasses, hemp currently delivers exciting value for industrial carbon capture. Furthermore, undergoing testing and certification, the company aims to launch its patented technology, CAST (Carbon Asset Storage Technology), to help organizations offset their carbon emissions.

Too Good To Go

More than one third of the world’s food is wasted. With the purpose of reducing food waste worldwide, the Danish company Too Good to Go developed a mobile application that connects customers to restaurants and stores that have unsold food surplus. The food on the app is priced at one-third its original price The application covers major European cities, and in October 2020 started operations in North America.

Kiverdi

Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production sectors. Unfortunately, this growth comes at a cost as the demand for fishmeal requires 15 million tons of wild caught fish per year. Kiverdi’s NASA-inspired technologies capture CO2 and transform it into a form that can be used in creating nutrients and bio-based products, including aquafeed. Based in Pleasanton, California, Kiverdi creates feed using captured CO2 and adding it alongside other elements in the company’s proprietary bioreactors. These reactors, powered by renewable energy, are able to convert these elements into nutrients. The company claims that the resulting complete protein has the same nutritional value as traditional fishmeal, offering a competitive, more sustainable substitute. The production of CO2 AQUAFEED also requires 10,000x less land and 2,000x less water compared to soy protein.

HEMPAX

Based in Massachusetts, Hempax energy systems, is a bio-based materials and energy storage manufacturing company that provides solutions to address the critical bottlenecks to the global decarbonization and electrification of utilities, transportation, and buildings. Their ultracapacitor (UC) modules are designed for hybrid energy storage systems for utility-scale grid deployments, commercial and industrial buildings, EVs, transportation, charging stations, and more.