Pioneering New Solutions to Recycle Solar Panels
Solar panels contain many valuable materials. Still, most of them end up discarded after use. Now researchers are investigating new ways of recycling.
SINTEF Industry
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“May offer us a new cure for lung cancer”
The delivery of nanomedicines using gas bubbles has shown itself to be a unique way of transporting cytotoxins to the lungs of cancer patients. The method enables precise and focused treatments, and the local action of the drugs also prevents a range of side-effects.
New technology makes carbon capture easier
A recent innovation has the potential to accelerate the introduction of essential carbon capture processes in a range of industries. The technology has recently been demonstrated at a waste combustion plant in Bergen, with excellent results.
How mining operations without spoil heaps can become a reality
Mineral recovery by mining generates large volumes of surplus crushed rock that end up polluting natural environments. If we succeed in generating new knowledge, such surpluses can instead be used to manufacture concrete or improve agricultural soils.
We should be happy that we have so many bacteria in our bodies
Researcher Hanne Haslene-Hox at SINTEF claims that bacteria are much better than their reputation suggests. Each of us hosts as many as 38 million of them in our bodies.
An essential watershed in emission-free freight transport in Norway
As early as next year, a hundred new hydrogen trucks will be rolling Norwegian roads – with zero emissions and a range of 500 kilometres. And that’s not all! It takes less than fifteen minutes to fill their tanks.
Artificial geysers can compensate for our mineral shortages
By imitating nature, it may be possible to recover seabed minerals by extracting hot water from the Earth’s crust. We can harvest green energy and be sensitive to the environment – all at the same time.
Hydrogen can remove harmful emissions from energy-demanding industries
Both the glass and aluminium industries cast glass in furnaces that generate large volumes of greenhouse gases. Researchers believe that replacing natural gas with hydrogen will enable us to remove greenhouse gas emissions and promote smarter production.
Saying no to all gene technology is an ethical short-circuit
Conventional breeding techniques result in major and uncontrolled modifications to the genetic material of plants and animals. If arguments based on the ‘precautionary principle’ are used as blindly on this issue as in the gene technology debate, then we are condemning the world to starvation.
We use chemicals for more or less ‘everything’. Now we have to find smarter ways of making them
Did you know that the chemical industry supplies products to virtually all other value chains, including the food, construction, health and transport sectors? All these industries are now having to renew themselves as part of the green transition, and SINTEF is working to help them.
Precautionary fundamentalism is threatening Norwegian food production
If the Norwegian government rejects the majority opinion of the Gene Technology Committee, it will miss a long overdue opportunity to boost food safety, improve animal welfare and promote more eco-friendly pesticides.
Bulk carriers can also be green
Research scientists from 16 countries are joining forces to make a bulk carrier climate neutral – all with the help of a new power train.
A technology to help us achieve large-scale carbon storage
SINTEF researchers are applying methodologies used to transport oil and gas in their efforts to upscale a technology for carbon capture and storage. This is good news for the climate.
Why we need biofuels
Necessary reductions in greenhouse gases will be achieved too late if we have to wait for all our aircraft, ships and trains to transition from fossil fuels. This is why we need biofuels – in spite of the criticisms levelled at their use in a recent article published on the opinions website ‘NRK Ytring’. Biofuels are no ‘climate change mitigation ruse’, as these authors would have you believe.
Cultivated kelp can now be as good as wild kelp
Norway already exports large amounts of valuable alginate, but new research findings can make this industry even larger and more sustainable.
Extracting valuable minerals in Norway
Today, products that utilise rare materials are for the most part manufactured in China. However, the EU has recently decided to boost its raw materials supply security. Researchers and the minerals industry are now looking to Norway.
How about a customised soap or shampoo, created using AI?
Researchers have recently discovered a new way of making consumer items. They’ve developed a machine, based on AI technology, that can customise personal care products to your own requirements.
Slag to replace cement in concrete? Yes, please!
The addition of slag has been shown to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from concrete manufacture by more than 95 per cent. Researchers have now discovered that the concrete delivers.
Explaining the mRNA technology that led to a Nobel prize
Last week, the Hungarian Katalin Karikó and the American Drew Weissman were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their research into the mRNA-technology applied to develop the vaccines used to combat Covid-19. But what exactly is mRNA technology?
We develop new technologies that may reduce the need for animal testing in medical research
Every organism needs to breathe – including cells that we use in in vitro microphysiological systems. We now have promising results with a material that enhances the quality of our experiments.
The hydrogen race is putting Norwegian competetiveness on the line
Norwegian hydrogen research laboratories have recently been celebrating breakthroughs that can help heavy industry to achieve climate neutrality. But current Norwegian government policy means that these findings will most likely only benefit our competitors.
Marine plastic waste can spread antimicrobial resistance
Bacteria discharged to the oceans in sewage and wastewater thrive on the biofilms that form on plastic waste. This may be leading to the somewhat unanticipated problem of antimicrobial resistance.
Urban sewage can be used to generate household electricity
According to researchers, so-called ‘industrial symbioses’ and ‘green hubs’ are offering answers to the challenge of meeting Europe’s climate change mitigation targets.
The aluminium in your old car should be recycled into a new car, not something else
Unless we acquire greater knowledge about what happens at the atomic and molecular scale during materials recycling, progress towards a truly circular economy will grind to a halt.