TECH OFFERS

The solar energy industry is experiencing rapid growth and innovation, and machine learning is playing a key role in driving this trend. Solar energy plays a crucial role in the sustainability initiative providing a clean, renewable, and cost-effective source of power. The adoption of solar energy usage can help to address climate change, improve energy security, and provide access to electricity in remote areas. This growth is fueled by the increasing adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies, which are helping organisations in the solar energy industry to more accurately predict and optimise the performance of their solar panels. These models can effectively analyse images of solar panels to detect and diagnose issues such as microcracks, “snail trails”, broken glass, hot spots, dust build-up and other defects that may impact their performance. Building and deploying these models can be a complex process, requiring the use of multiple tools and a high level of technical expertise. This technology offer is a customisable end-to-end MLOps platform that is capable of streamlining the process and makes it easier for teams to build custom computer vision models specifically for solar energy monitoring and optimisation. With this platform, teams can quickly and easily convert their data into working models with enterprise-standard practices, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of their solar energy monitoring systems. The technology owner is keen to do R&D collaboration with organisations looking to improve and optimise the overall design and integration of solar energy systems.  

Bioplastics have gained significant attention due to the environmental issues of fossil-based plastics and the realisation of limited petroleum resources. On the other side, industrial and agricultural organic wastes are produced in huge quantities worldwide, resulting in serious environmental and economic impacts. To solve the above problems, the technology owner has developed a 100% natural biotechnological process to convert industrial and agricultural organic waste into bioplastics. Bioplastics are fully biodegradable and biocompatible, with no harm to humans and environment. These bioplastics are applicable to industrial plastic processes and potentailly replace conventional plastics in short lifespan applications. The use of industrial and agricultural waste as cheaper sources not only makes the production process more economic but also helps in the management of organic waste, contributing to the goal of a circular economy. This technology is available for IP licensing and R&D collaboration with industrial partners who are interested in the sustainable production of bioplastics using organic waste.

Traditional traceability technologies often rely on barcodes, QR codes, and holograms on external packaging. These methods are always more susceptible to both intentional and unintentional removal or tampering. This technology offer is a patented innovation that uses natural food ingredients as a unique bio barcode tag for identification. Tags can be added directly as a powder or liquid to products for batch tagging. The technology helps to prove compliance by offering tamper-proof assurance from raw material and hence improves the supply chain integrity by preventing counterfeiting, product dilution, and cross-contamination; at the same time, the tags protect brand value, and transparency as well as establish brand recognition. The technology provider is interested to do test-bedding with food ingredients companies, FMCG companies, agri-food growers, and trading companies who are concerning traceability in their value chain.

Catastrophic residential fires and wildfires have a significant impact in terms of fatalities, injuries, loss of property, and air pollution. Flame retardants play important roles in fire protection by helping to prevent or slow the spread of fire. Currently, brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are the most abundantly used flame retardants. However, there are increasing concerns about their toxicity to humans and persistence in the environment.  To find an eco-friendly alternative to those toxic chemicals, the technology owner has developed a non-toxic flame-retardant nanocoating using bio-based and renewable raw materials such as chitosan and clay nanoplatelets. This water-based coating can potentially be applied to any flammable polymeric material, such as wood, foams and fabrics, providing effective fire protection for a wide range of applications. The technology is available for IP licencing and R&D collaboration with industry partners who are interested in adopting flame-retardant coatings in their products and applications.

There is a proliferation of health-tech wearables in recent years as the healthcare paradigm shifts from discrete monitoring in a hospital to continuous monitoring at one’s convenience. However, regular change of batteries and power outlet charging are often the pain points of using these wearables. Moreover, electrical charging points may not be readily available, especially when the user is in an outdoor environment for prolonged periods e.g. field trips that stretch for a few days. For these wearable devices to be powered for uninterrupted usage, there is a need for a constant source of external energy supply. Ambient energy can be harvested from the body's activities and serve as a reliable external energy source for wearables and portable electronic devices. As this energy source is readily available, energy sustainability can be achieved for the electronics and sensors in wearables and portable devices. However, it remains a technological challenge to develop such energy-harvesting devices.  This technology offer is a 2-D non-resonant energy harvesting method using hybrid energy harvesting mechanisms that can harvest energy from body movements. It can also be customised to harvest wave or wind energy, etc.  The technology owner is keen to do R&D collaboration, technology licensing and test-bedding with application developers intending to use motion energy harvesting solution to power devices. 

Feed cost generally accounts for 60% to 70% of the total production costs in an intensive shrimp aquaculture system. Fishmeal, which is often the main ingredient of shrimp feed, is one of the reasons for the high cost. It is also unsustainable to use fishmeal as it is derived from fish, contributing to the depletion of other fish species on a global scale. The technology offer is an alternative protein source in shrimp feed that uses okara, a nutrient-dense side stream from soy milk and bean curd production. Direct application of unprocessed okara into shrimp feed may work, however, due to the presence of anti-nutrients, the absorption of protein and amino acids from the okara may be limited. The technology developer has formulated a shrimp feed with an optimum amount of processing to increase the digestibility and enhance the nutritional properties and at the same time lowering the cost of shrimp feed by up to 50%. Currently, the developer has developed shrimp feed suitable for L. vannamei shrimp species with complete or partial replacement of animal protein which is fish meal. The technology is available for IP licensing and IP acquisition as well as R&D collaboration with industrial partners who are keen to adopt the solution. 

Caregivers often need to monitor the whereabouts of People with Intellectual Disabilities (PwIDs), who tend to wander off their usual route because of distractions or stress. Current measures to locate them are manual and time-consuming. Caregivers have to retrace the daily journey taken by the PwIDs and rely on the public to assist them.  This technology offer is a low-cost, reliable tracking and monitoring device, developed to enable caregivers to easily track the current location of the PwIDs. The tracking device uses Global Positioning System (GPS) to obtain location data, whereas the corresponding timestamp (date, time) is obtained from the Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) network. The resultant timestamped GPS data can be sent to any cloud servers or IoT dashboards via NB-IoT communication. An existing issue with some current NB-IoT tracking system is, the timestamp may not be accurately tagged to the corresponding GPS location data, due to mis-synchronisation. This system is able to overcome such a problem, hence ensuring accuracy of tracking. The tracking device is encased in an access card form factor that can be worn around the neck, making it suitable for PwIDs as it is a familiar form factor to them. The technology owner is able to customise the tracking device; data can be streamed to a 3rd party application server for post-processing and dashboarding. The technology owner is keen to do R&D collaboration with tracking device design companies, and/or end application users such as PwID institutions, including those with existing tracking platforms.

Indoor farming presents a range of different challenges to crop yields compared to outdoor farming activities. Traditional outdoor farmers intuitively know what environmental factors affect the growth of the crop. Indoor farming, on the other hand, requires the farmer to simulate the optimal climate conditions for expected crop yields. The indoor climate can either contribute to the yields or, in unfortunate circumstances, lead to the loss of the crop. However, it is not always easy to create an ideal environment for the crop.  This technology offer is a control system that allows the facility manager to align optimal crop conditions with the equipment settings in their facility, minimising the drift between settings and site-level crop conditions. The control system can also be used to compute the correlation between data across crop production, environment, and business performance. The control system can be customised further by adding other sensors for better accuracy of control.  The technology owner is keen to do R&D collaboration and licensing with innovative industrial automation companies specialising in product development of sensor networks and high-data throughput IoT gateways.   

Anti-corrosion coatings have attracted tremendous attention due to their significant safety, financial, and environmental impacts. However, the protective coatings are highly susceptible to damage during transport, installation, and service. The detection of initial micro-cracks is very difficult, but the propagation of corrosion can be quite fast. Therefore, smart coating with self-healing function is a promising route to address the above challenges. The technology owner has developed a polymer-based hollow microcapsule that can release the active ingredients in response to external stimuli. Microcapsules encapsulated with corrosion inhibitors can be added as anti-corrosion additives in coating primer. In the presence of damage, microcapsules get activated and release corrosion inhibitors directly onto the corroding site to prevent the corrosion. This self-healing anti-corrosion coating can effectively extend materials’ lifetimes, reduce maintenance expenses, and enhance public safety. The advanced microcapsule technology can also largely reduce the content of toxic corrosion inhibitors by 90%, enabling an environmentally friendly coating solution. The technology owner is interested in IP licensing and R&D collaboration with industrial partners who are seeking self-healing smart coatings for corrosion protection. The microcapsule technology is also available for co-innovation in other applications, such as anti-fouling and agricultural pest control.