TECH OFFERS

Mixed plastic waste is an abundant resource containing approximately 7-12 wt.% hydrogen (H2). Traditionally, hydrogen is produced from non-sustainable fossil feedstock, such as natural gas, coal and petroleum oil. This technology offer is a thermo-catalytic process that sustainably recovers hydrogen from plastic waste instead. During hydrogen recovery process, instead of releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) that causes greenhouse gas effect, the technology converts emissions into a form of solid carbon, called carbon nanotubes (CNT). Solid carbon is easier to store and handle compared to the gaseous carbon dioxide. Furthermore, carbon can be sold as an industrial feedstock for manufacturing of polymer composites, batteries, concrete, paints, and coatings. With over 150-190 million tonnes of mixed plastic waste ending up in landfills and our environment annually, the technology offers a sustainable solution for the elimination of plastic waste and decarbonization while providing a clean hydrogen supply.

Pre-combustion, post-combustion and oxyfuel combustion capturing from power plants and other industrial scale companies are the three current carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and separation technologies. Unlike liquid and membrane adsorbents, solid adsorbents have a wider temperature range of adsorption and can be safely disposed in the environment. The use of solid adsorbents in industrial exhaust gases has shown to be a successful method of trapping concentrated CO2 for later storage rather than direct emission to the environment. Recent investigations have identified magnesium oxide based (MgO) solid adsorbents as a potential material for CO2 capture at intermediate temperatures. Furthermore, magnesium (Mg) based minerals are nontoxic, abundant materials which can be prepared in large scale at relatively low cost. Even though MgO has a high theoretical CO2 capture capacity (1100 mg CO2/g sorbent), it underperforms in practical applications due to a limiting number of active CO2 capture sites. MgO reacts with CO2 to create MgCO3 in dry, high-temperature circumstances. The formation of such MgCO3 carbonates obstructs additional carbon lattice transit leads which lowers the total CO2 capture efficiency. This technology offer is an anion doping method of MgO at room temperature to prevent the formation of MgCO3. The novel MgO-Mg(OH)2 composite nanomaterial is formed via electrospinning technology and improves the overall efficiency of MgO as a CO2 capture material.

Traditionally, companies which deploy various assets in the field have to manually locate them to either service them, or just to find out where they are to collect them. Examples of these assets could be movable types like supermarket trolleys, delivery vehicles, hospital wheelchairs, etc., or non-movable types like machinery and equipment. By attaching small, IoT-based tracking devices to these assets, the asset owner will be able to track and locate them automatically. In addition, the operating status and physical parameters of the asset can be measured by additional sensors embedded into the tracking device. These location and condition data gathered by the asset tracking device can enable further downstream decisions to be made. For example, process enhancement such as predictive maintenance, real-time inventory management, or a simple track and trace operation, etc. Human-based errors can be minimised, increasing operational efficiency. This technology offer is an IoT-based asset tracking device that is fully customisable to perform various additional sensing functions. The device is also capable of monitoring its own operating conditions and associated environmental parameters. The technology owner is keen to do R&D collaboration with application developers from industries such as asset management, equipment management, logistics and the hospitality industry.

The human nose has 400 different types of odour receptors yet has the ability to recognise about 10000 different smells. Currently, there are different artificial methods that can be used to sense various odours by detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs). However, many of these methods detect a single type of VOC at any one time or detect the whole VOCs without identification, are often expensive, time-consuming, or require skilled laboratory personnel to perform the procedure. This technology offer is a novel Artificial Olfactory Sensor (AOS) system with pattern recognition using artificial intelligence (AI). This system can simultaneously detect multiple VOCs, and is able to classify the odours through AI techniques. The sensor can detect at concentration as low as 1ppb (parts per billion) and provides a fast sensing speed at 10 second/cycle.  The patented technology can be used in food quality evaluation, air quality evaluation or human healthcare diagnostics.

With the increasing global prevalence of gastrointestinal disorders, the rise in the geriatric population, and the preference for minimally invasive techniques by patients for diagnosis, the demand for capsule endoscopy is expected to grow to $1.2 billion by 2026. But the process of detecting lesions or abnormalities from the images taken by the capsule endoscope is very tedious, time-consuming and error-prone. It takes about two hours for a doctor to read an image due to which the missed diagnosis rate could be high. This technology offer is an AI platform that assists with the clinical diagnosis of endoscopy images and it comprises three deep learning networks that can be used to classify vascular lesions/inflammation, improve the image quality of the area of interest, and upscale the image resolution.

This technology offer is an Intelligent IoT Vertical Farming system, which is designed to be 4-tiered and mobile, for either indoor or outdoor farming. It uses a hydroponic system that grows plants by enhancing the photosynthetic process.  Since the system does not use soil, it is cleaner and more hygienic. FDA-approved and organic mineral nutrients are used for the hydroponic growing.  Compared to traditional agriculture, the vertical farming implementation saves more than 90 percent land area needed, while harvesting 80 percent more per unit area. Furthermore, with the water recycling design, the system achieves a reduction of 70 to 85 percent water usage.  The set-up therefore, promotes the “Go Green” initiative and contributes towards Singapore’s effort to reduce our carbon footprint.  In summary, the following is achieved: More than 90% land savings with more than 80% physical spaces unlocked. 70-85% water savings. Reduced wastages of fertilizers and nutrients.

Transparent conductive films have the function of transmitting both electricity and visible light. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been widely used as a transparent electrode, but it is not able to meet the demand for lower resistance required in recent years. Metal mesh has been developed as an alternative, but there is a trade-off between lower resistance and finer wiring lines. When a large size is required, transmissivity has to be sacrificed by the increased line width to lower the resistance. The technology owner has developed a double-sided metal mesh-based transparent conductive film using a unique roll-to-roll manufacturing process to achieve a high wiring aspect ratio, low electrical resistance, and high transmissivity at the same time. It also has a very high planarity of the film surface, ensuring stable performance and quality when used as a transparent electrode for thin film applications.

Agarwood (Aquilaria malaccensis) is a fragrant dark resinous wood used in the production of oud oil through distillation. Agarwood and its by-products are associated with many cultures and religious purposes in Middle East, China, Japan, India, etc. They are widely used to produce incense, perfume, medicine, TCM medicine, teas, complimentary health products and more. This technology offer encompasses a distillation process that provides the highest quality of oud oil in terms of purity and density from agarwood. The technology owner is interested to do R&D collaboration and co-development activities with partners from various application fields, e.g., the development of novel complementary health products containing oud in the areas of wellness, medicinal, cultural, lifestyle, and product innovation relating to its by-products or waste.

Scaffolds and microcarriers are the enabling technologies to support higher cell densities in cultivated meat and seafood development. There are currently different types of microcarriers available for cultivated meat. However, many of these are mostly made of animal-derived materials, non-edible materials or with low surface volume ratio. This technology offer is an edible, 100% plant-based microcarriers and scaffolds. The microcarriers and microbeads allow cells to proliferate and enhance the density of cells within a bioreactor. On the other hand, the scaffolds help those proliferated cells to differentiate as well as provide structure and texture for different cuts of meat. The technology is available for R&D collaboration and IP licensing, with partners that are working in the cultivated meat, seafood and dairy industry.