Smouldering corrosion risk in sprinkler systems demands new knowledge
Insidious bacteria could cause trouble for the sprinkler wave that is now rolling in across Norway if the tiny organisms are not taken seriously.

Insidious bacteria could cause trouble for the sprinkler wave that is now rolling in across Norway if the tiny organisms are not taken seriously.
Far below the earth’s surface is an energy source with huge and perpetual potential: geothermal heat. But the forces in its scorching and inhospitable depths must be tamed. Now scientists know what that will take.
It’s easy to oppose solar parks when you hear that 60 solar plants are equivalent in area to over 5000 football pitches, as recently reported by NRK. This analogy draws attention away from other important aspects of the debate.
A box the size of a refrigerator that supplies a home – and perhaps ten neighbouring houses – with electricity. That’s Ole Martin Løvvik’s dream at SINTEF.
The goal is to eliminate both charging anxiety and environmental concerns. Now researchers have created the “recipe” to do it.
Nanomedicines save lives, but they don’t reach the market or the patient’s body fast enough. Researchers have now come up with a recipe to accelerate and improve the process.
Digital technologies are creating many opportunities for the industry, but how can you ensure that you take advantage of these opportunities in practice? Researchers examine how and why in the new book “Digitalization and Sustainable Manufacturing – Twin Transition in Norway”.
It’s been a mystery for many years: Every day, tonnes of ferromanganese – an important additive in steel – are “locked” in slag on their way out of the furnaces. We are now getting close to solving this problem.
Ropes and fishing gear used in the fisheries and aquaculture industries are a major source of microplastics in the ocean and littering along the coastline. A multidisciplinary international research team has now drawn up a plan that will help to reduce pollution.
Solar panels contain many valuable materials. Still, most of them end up discarded after use. Now researchers are investigating new ways of recycling.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Research scientists from 16 countries are joining forces to make a bulk carrier climate neutral – all with the help of a new power train.
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.
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.
Norway already exports large amounts of valuable alginate, but new research findings can make this industry even larger and more sustainable.