A shower that saves power, water and lives; concrete that is stronger, lighter and cheaper and could revolutionise building design; and a system that turns off the power when it gets too expensive, are fighting it out to be the 2014 Built Environment Technologies Award winner.
For the Water Technologies Award, the finalists have a bio-mimicry filter based on a whale, a nanotech membrane that holds bacteria and fungi and wastewater treatment chemicals produced more efficiently and cheaply.
These are just some of the amazing Finalist companies in the 2014 Australian Technologies Competition. They demonstrate how, with support and encouragement, Australian innovation and smart manufacturing can produce world leading products. The idea that Australian manufacturing is dead is blown away by these and other smart companies developing to products of the future. With their help, maybe Australia will manage to avoid its Kodak moment in the transition to a low carbon economy.
The annual Australian Technologies Competition (ATC) comes to a head on 16 September with the winners announced across six industry categories. The Finalists are developing a range of revolutionary innovations that address the big growth opportunities and challenges of the future. Solutions for food, water and energy security and the creation of new knowledge and skills intensive industries that will forge Australia’s position in global high-tech markets.
The judges come from technology, finance and business backgrounds and combine to do a detailed assessment of the company’s business plan focusing on the quality of the technology, the market need, the quality of the team and the business model that the company has adopted. To win, a company must excel in each category.
2014 Built Environment Technology Award Finalists
| CINTEP | QLD | CINTEP’s Recycling Shower system is possibly the world’s first life-saving shower system. It reduces water and energy consumption from showering by 70% without reducing flow rate, temperature, or time in the shower. This can translate to a family household saving of $937 every year, along with 73,000 litres of water and 2.6 tons of CO2. Its potential to save lives however, was what caught the attention of the US Army. Now in negotiations with CINTEP, the US Military estimates that this recycling shower could reduce operational fatalities by 20% due to the drastic reduction in supply convoys who primarily move large qualities of water to the front line. |
| Eden Energy (ASX:EDE) | WA | Eden Energy is developing carbon nanotube (CNT) enriched concrete for use in construction and infrastructure. CNT’s are super strength, nano-carbon particles with a flexural strength of 200-300 times that of steel. A small percentage of CNT added to concrete should significantly reduce the quantity of concrete required for structures and reduce or even perhaps eliminate the need for re-enforcing steel, resulting in cheaper, lighter, stronger structures, far more flexible designs and far lower Greenhouse Gas footprints.Eden Energy has commenced trails in the US of its carbon-nanotube enriched concrete. |
| GreenSync | VIC |
GreenSync is changing the way that its customers consume energy. They have developed a system that allows utilities and large customers to better forecast and predict their energy loads to maximise the efficiency of when equipment is used. Its systems work 24×7, integrating weather and climatic data, production schedules, along with information from networks and markets around the country to predict forthcoming high load and high cost events.More than just another Big Data framework, GreenSync have developed a unique real-time analysis for detecting and quantifying peaks, and a way to automatically respond to these peaks through reducing energy demand of industrial equipment. |
2014 Water Technology Award Finalists
| Baleen Filters | SA | The unique patented Baleen Filter provides a sophisticated yet easy to implement solution to effectively separate suspended matter from industrial, mining and municipal wastewaters.The Baleen Filter uses a double-act of high pressure, low volume sprays, enabling smooth continuous operation and overcoming the inadequacies and high costs involved in conventional systems.The modular, scalable Baleen Filter is proven in a very wide range of industries, and has solved many industrial and municipal wastewater treatment problems and requirements, including mining, food and beverage production, livestock processing and municipal waste treatment. |
| BioGill | NSW | BioGills’ Nano-Ceramic Membranes™ combine science and technology to create the most useful and cost effective wastewater treatment systems. BioGills are the perfect habitat for nature’s best recyclers, bacteria and fungi; to grow, multiply and consume nutrients from wastewater faster and more effectively. BioGill – focusing the force of nature. |
| Calix | NSW | Calix’s mission is to simplify how things are made. Refined minerals help make almost everything, and yet they are expensive and energy intensive to use. Calix has developed an elegant technology that creates mineral “popcorn” – fluffy tiny mineral particles that combine more readily into products and innovative new materials – while capturing CO2. Its first product-to-market is a Magnesium Hydroxide Liquid (MHL), a superior additive for the treatment of waste water, that delivers price and energy savings of at least 25 % against current methods. |
An initiative of the Australian Federal government, and now in its fourth year, the ATC has a track record of finding, mentoring and promoting some of Australia’s best technology companies. The Showcase and Awards dinner will celebrate the success of Australia’s top 36 Semi Finalists and is an opportunity to rub shoulders with these leading companies, meet the country’s leading commercialisation experts and learn from international speakers on what Asian markets are seeking.
And of course find out which companies will be the 2014 Winners.
More information at www.austechcomp.com
