L’sustainable innovation protagonist to Maker Faire Rome. There are many innovative projects, capable of offering an important contribution to improve and protect the environment in which we live, presented at the fair. Below is a selection of 5 innovative green-themed projects which will be available from 7 to 9 October at the Gazometro Ostiense in Rome.
The Kit for the construction of eco-sustainable boats
He maker Maurizio Borriello has devised a kit to produce eco-sustainable boats, which combines the application of innovative technologies to the use of wood, a material used for millennia in the naval sector that many are re-evaluating for its great potential. This kit is not a simple set of pre-manufactured pieces like the many on the market, but it is a product designed to become a permanent equipment, which can be used for the mass production, or one-off, of boats in solid wood.
Usually when it comes to boats, the most used building material is glass fiber: a product that derives from non-renewable fossil sources, which implies a great environmental impact for its extraction and processing. The woodon the contrary, it is a natural, durable, recyclable and biodegradable material. For this reason, although it may seem an obsolete material for boat building, it is making a comeback in some of the most advanced shipyards in the world and has been re-evaluated as a “modern” material.
Among the benefits, this kit allows shipyard operators to obtain accurate results while minimizing time and cost. Although this innovation is largely based onintegration of Cad-Cam-Cnc technologies, does not require the shipyard to invest large sums in the repeated purchase or rental of such sophisticated technologies. The service costs of these equipment are in fact reduced to a single time and the Kit can be applied to the construction of the most varied types of boats: work boats, traditional models, contemporary classic boats and modern design boats.
LiFi Revolution: The new horizon of fast, secure and sustainable connection
LiFi Revolution is a project developed by the SME To Bewhich exploits the potential of light for connect things and people in a sustainable way. It allows light not only to illuminate a space, but also to become a source of data transmission involving users in a unique and innovative experience within the environments.
But what exactly is it Live? Acronym for Light Fidelitythe Live it’s a wireless technology that uses the modulation of LED light to transmit information in a fast, safe and sustainable way. In fact, all LED sources can be potential transmitters of information and each device can turn into a potential user of the information itself. Specifically, the LiFis technology exploits the on-off switching of the light frequency. This 0/1 sequence of light emitted is not visible to the human eye and allows the transmission of data in a green way, thanks to the absence of radio waves and the reduction of energy consumption linked to the use of latest generation LED lamps.
In addition to the appearance sustainability, the project could bring benefits from several points of view. For one thing this new technology is up to 100 times faster than current WI-fi connections and has no problems of interference with other devices, guaranteeing the transmission of data even in places such as hospitals or airplanes, which are difficult to reach by radio waves.
Plus, she’s sure why light can be confined within a space, avoiding the risk of attacks by hackers and is not subject to bandwidth saturation problems. LiFi is also considered the best performing geolocation technology currently available on the market: each LiFi lamp has a specific address and by combining the data of several lamps it is possible to define the position of a user with extreme precision.
Lokit Urban Hub for sustainable mobility
Lokit Urban Hub it’s a’micro-mobility infrastructure providing parking, mobility and connectivity services in one place. The project was carried out by Lokit Technology Srla startup founded in Bari in 2021, which currently operates in the field of smart mobility: a sector that is changing the way people move around the city and combines the principles of the sharing economy with digital technologies, giving life to innovative, more efficient ways of moving and less polluting.
Lokit Urban Hub is the first complete platform for sustainable mobility that integrates hardware and software technologies, with exponential technologies such as IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and 5G. The purpose of the project is to implement a capillary and sustainable infrastructure throughout the territoryto provide a tool for electric micro-mobility that is effective against vandalism, theft, incorrect parking and disorder in city streets, as well as offering support to businesses and public administrations thanks to the enormous amount of data collected by the ‘infrastructure.
Frelp by Sun: the technology for the recovery of photovoltaic panels at the end of their life
Frelp (Full Recovery End of Life Photovoltaic) is one of the first projects in the world that aims to create a integral recovery system of the materials that make up the photovoltaic panelsin an economically sustainable way. Tialpi srlthe SME working on this ambitious project, has been testing and developing innovative technologies for years to try to recover 100% of the photovoltaic panels at the end of their life and proposes two main environmental solutions. The first concerns the recovery of high quality extra clear glass, to be used in the hollow glass and flat glass industry, reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the process of glass fusion. The second is the recovery of silicon metal, to be used in ferro-silicon alloys or to be transformed into amorphous silicon for the production of thin films, reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions associated with primary silicon production.
Frelp by Sun is one of the research and development projects that is part of the larger project Frelp and consists of an innovative technology that allows to recover the components of the photovoltaic panels with an expected reuse of 97% and a transfer to special, non-hazardous waste of only 3%. To date, an experimental development plant is in operation a Mottalciatain the province of Biella. The most important technological innovation of the experimental plant consists in a patented device for detaching the glass from the mat, which allows: on the one hand to have good quality recycled glass, and on the other hand to have a mat that contains all silicon and that can be recycled in the steel industry. The results achieved so far are decidedly positive and encouraging: a recovery of 16% of aluminum; 61% of first quality glass and 4% of second quality glass to which is added a recovery of 16% of sandwich containing 1/3 of metallic silicon.
Komposta, the kitchen hood with a green heart
Rithema, a company specializing in technological solutions for the optimization of the use of natural resources, has found a completely new way to exploit the heat that is produced every day when we cook. Thus was born Compost: a hood for kitchens capable of drying food and transforming fruit and vegetable waste into compost, thanks to the heat coming from the hob. The project was created to respond to two main problems: on the one hand the management of organic waste and on the other the energy efficiency of the home environment.
The transformation of wet waste into compost in fact, it allows a significant reduction in pollution related to the transport and management of organic waste, which involves high CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the damp, in case of rain or in summer, creates a high bacterial proliferation due to the putrefaction of the accumulated waste, giving life to polluting liquids such as leachate and annoying smelly areas in urban centers. With the Komposta hood, thanks to thermal ventilation, dehydration of organic waste occurs in a few hoursgoing to completely eliminate the problem of bad smells and allowing to obtain a compost of the highest quality after only 6 hours.
This process is further encouraged by the automatic rotation of an internal perforated container, essential for the complete aeration of the humid and easily removable and washable. In the absence of heat coming from the hob, Komposta also activates automatic low-power thermoventilation cycles, ensuring the correct finalization of the compost transformation process.