Technology Strategy Board to invest in the development of green technology

(15/06/2009)

The Technology Strategy Board has announced that skin and hair care products from seaweed, inkless digital printing and recovering nickel from old batteries are just three areas of new “green technology” development to receive financial support.

The aim is to develop new or improved sustainable materials, processes and products, and a total of eighteen innovative projects are to benefit from investment totalling over £20 million. The work will take place in the UK over the next three years, and half the funding will come from the Technology Strategy Board – the organisation that drives technological innovation in the UK.

Explaining the Technology Strategy Board’s decision to invest in the development of green technology, lead technologist Alan Hooper said: “The development of sustainable products and materials is vital if we are to respond successfully to the many environmental and energy challenges that we face, and investing in the development of green technology is one of the Technology Strategy Board’s top priorities.”

“Green technology also makes business sense” he added, “With increases in both demand and prices for energy and resources, businesses that use resources more efficiently will benefit from cost savings and opportunities for growth as customers increasingly demand products that both save them money and are more friendly to the environment.”

Other new green products and materials that will be developed through these projects include:
- Lightweight, sustainable products using design optimisation and additive manufacturing.
- Design and disassembly techniques to enable corporate clothing to be renewed and recycled.
- Reuse of shellfish waste products, for packaging.
- Environmentally-friendly wood treatment for external use.
- Sustainable, recyclable, lightweight high-energy absorbing material.
- Sustainable detergent for domestic laundry.
- New industrial process for the production of re-mouldable, re-vulcanisable rubber compound, from end-of-life vulcanised rubber.

Details of some projects currently available include:

Title: Recovery of Nickel from Filter Cake (RECONIF)

Summary: The project aims to develop technology to recover (for recycling and reuse), Nickel from surface finishing and end-of-life batteries. An integrated system will be developed, based on the selective dissolution of nickel from its hydroxide via novel ionic liquid solvents and the subsequent high efficiency electrowinning of the nickel in pure metallic form for reuse. This development is highly innovative and addresses the loss of a valuable resource with its associated high environmental impact, for which no viable economic solution currently exists.

Title: Functional, Renewable and Sustainable Hybrid (FR&SH) materials

Summary: The object of this project is to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of added-value chemical formulation materials based on renewable feedstocks and to enhance competitiveness of the UK chemical producing and using sector, including industrial process chemicals and consumer products. Functional, renewable & sustainable hybrid (FR&SH) rheology modifiers for aqueous formulations will be developed collaboratively by a team of end-users, producers and scientific experts.

Title: Sustainable Surface Engineered Ceramic Friction Materials (SurFace)

Summary: The aim of the project is to develop an innovative tailored material surface layer for ceramic brake discs (rotors) for automotive and rail applications that will provide a consistent reproducible improved friction surface on discs that can be made with a variable waste carbon fibre reinforced substrate and also enable suitable end of life ceramic discs to be processed for reuse. This will lead to a truly sustainable C-SiC (carbon fibre reinforced silicon carbide) ceramic composite (CFRCC) friction material, with many environmental and economic benefits, such as the reduction of manufacturing costs, process emissions and use of virgin materials.

Title: SAVING - Sustainable product development via design optimisation and AdditiVe manufacturING

Summary: The project aims to develop lightweight and sustainable products via material design optimization and additive manufacturing (AM) which will significantly save materials and energy consumption in the production of high value products. As an innovative and promising material process technology, AM allows the rapid development of sustainable products through new lightweight material structure technology that utilises functional metal and plastic materials more effectively.

Title: Rapid disassembly techniques to enable reuse of corporate clothing and up-cycling of garment waste - SUSCORP

Summary: The project will develop new processes and introduce novel applications for materials that will assist the corporate clothing sector to enhance its competitiveness and reduce its environmental and societal burdens. An estimated 16 million items of corporate clothing that could be reused are currently either sent for disposal or downgraded to low value mixed fibre recyclates. The work will seek to develop two additional new design and disassembly techniques such that they can be implemented at a commercially relevant scale, quality and cost.

Title: Extraction, isolation and application of natural polyphenols, polysaccharides and pigments from British seaweeds for high-value applications (Seaweed3P)

Summary: The purpose of this project is to extract natural compounds from British seaweed varieties and utilise them in new high-value applications for skin and hair care, creating high-value opportunities for a UK sustainable material. The overall objective is to develop a comprehensive range of hair colorants, hair care agents, and skin care agents derived from British seaweeds with a whole life cycle of sustainable technology from source, through production, to end use and appropriate disposal.

Title: Sustainable Technologies for Chitosan and Novel Functional Derivatives

Summary: Chitin and chitosan, derived from waste products from shell fish processing, will be investigated as a source of feedstock for novel industrial applications. More than 5000 tonnes of this material are produced per annum and this project will investigate a more productive outlet for these potentially valuable by-products from the seafood industry. Applications include packaging, agricultural seed coatings and drilling products.

Title: Environmentally Friendly Wood Treatment

Summary: The proposed project will develop a novel approach to providing improved protection to exterior wood against the principal agents of deterioration, namely decay and weathering, in order to extend service life. The treated wood will also be readily recyclable. The objective is to develop a treatment which has the functionality of 'traditional' wood preservatives, some of which have now been withdrawn on environmental and health grounds. Newer replacement products are on the market, but do not provide such effective protection.

Title: ReMould: Development of a scalable, industrial process for the continuous production of re-mouldable, re-vulcanisable rubber compound from end-of-life vulcanised rubber.

Summary: ReMould will develop a novel, scalable, industrial process for the continuous production of re-mouldable and re-vulcanisable rubber compound, for extrusion and moulding, derived from of end-of-life EPDM, NR, and SBR vulcanised rubber sourced from scrap automotive seals and tyres.

Related categories:  Electronic and electrical waste recycling   Glass recycling   Metal recycling   Paper and cardboard recycling   Plastic recycling   Recyclable materials   Textile recycling   Waste treatment technologies