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Cheaper to capture CO2
from industrial plants |
A recent SINTEF report claims that it is cheaper to capture carbon dioxide directly from major industrial plants than from gas-fired power stations. SINTEF scientists studied how much it would cost to capture CO2 at nine large industrial companies by means of a chemical process that involves amines. At four of the companies, it turned out that it would be cheaper to capture the gas there than at a gas-fired power station.
One of the main reasons that capture directly from a factory may be cheaper is that the factory´s CO2 emissions can be very high. The State Pollution Control Authority (SFT) regards it as a positive factor that capturing CO2 at major sources of emissions other than power stations is not necessarily expensive. SFT will examine these findings in more detail and recommend more research on this topic.
Better airspace environment |
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Photo: Courtesy of Memscap |
Last December, the SESAR Joint Undertaking was launched at a ceremony in Brussels. The Natmig consortium, of which SINTEF is one of four members, will participate in SESAR, along with 14 other companies. The SESAR Joint Undertaking is a public-private partnership which will conduct research on air-traffic control systems. The programmes will have 2.1 billion euro to develop a modern European air-traffic control system.
SESAR’s goal is to eliminate overload in European airspace, help to improve flight punctuality and reduce the environmental impact of air transport. Advanced communications technology should make it possible to improve air-space capacity utilization and reduce the negative environmental impact of flying by 10%. Even though air transport only produces 2 – 3% of global CO2 emissions, SESAR is emphasizing the importance of environmental responsibility.
Flexible children’s chair |
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Photo: Krabat |
The Jockey chair was awarded the 2008 design prize by the Norwegian Technoport Awards in the autumn. The child sits in the chair in a saddle seat, with his or her legs apart. With its foot supports, the saddle chair reduces the need to support the child’s upper half. The chair can be folded, has many different adjustments and is quite light. It can also help handicapped children use tables and desks.
Formel Industridesign AS designed the Krabat Jockey, while the Krabat Company has supported project management and the development of the chair, along with its production and marketing. Krabat’s executive director, Tom-Arne Solhaug, was educated at NTNU. The design prize includes a NOK150 000 cash award and is Norway’s only industry design prize.
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Foto: Initial Force AS |
The world’s golf instructors can be happy about a new training device. Initial Force AS had previously developed a so-called strength platform – Swing Catalyst – which, combined with video filming and a pressure mat, measures and analyses the golfer’s movements while swinging, including his or her balance, weight distribution and foot placement.
The system has now been equipped with a ball radar, based on defence technology, which gives exact information about the ball’s flight, with direction, distance, rotation and speed. The measurement data and the video appear on a screen, giving the instructor a unique starting point for determining how the golfer can improve his or her movements and stroke. Initial Force is an NTNU spinoff, with the equipment tested at NTNU’s laboratory for movement analysis. The product is now being introduced on the global golf market.
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Foto: Morguefile |
Women who suffer from chronic muscular pain feel that they are powerless in the face of the health services. Western medicine regards it as a truism that pain can always be traced to a physical symptom. However, doctors may be unable to identify “objective findings” in patients with problems of this sort. Physiotherapists, on the other hand, find physical changes in such patients: arrested respiration, muscular tension, poor balance and difficulty in relaxing.
Such changes may make it easier to understand the problems of these patients. A phenomenological perspective on the body, as something that we both have and are, could improve our understanding of how our physical habits develop. Sissel Steilhaug, a physician and senior research scientist at SINTEF, points out that if health service personnel are to be able to help patients with chronic muscular pain, they will have to look at physical problems in the context of the sort of lives led by their patients.
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Fewer solvents thanks to nanotechnology |
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Photo: Getty Images |
When the paint manufacturing industry has to meet new environmental requirements, nanotechnology will play a major role. The paint company Jotun is now launching its new “nano-paint”, which incorporates technology developed by SINTEF. According to materials scientist Christian Simon, nanotechnology helps paints to be more environmentally friendly, to dry rapidly and to be tougher than ordinary paint. Now scientists are trying to identify the most appropriate nanoparticles for a wide spectrum of paint types, from alkyd paints to two-component epoxy paints. Jotun have applied for a patent on their technology, and the first products are due on the market in autumn 2009.
The more education you have, the lower your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Eight to nine years of schooling gives better protection than six or seven, and more than ten years of education reduces the risk even further. These findings come from researchers at NTNU’s Department of Neuromedicine who are participating in a dementia research project called Trønderbrain. But Sigrid Botne Sando, who is behind the study, does not preclude the possibility that school attendance is a marker for some other condition – such as lifestyle – that can affect the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
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Photo: Jan Chr. Sørlie |
Among the many things that Charles Darwin brought home with him from the HMS Beagle’s around the world journey from 1831–1836 were several coralline algae from the sea off Bahia in Brazil. Two of these can be found today at NTNU’s Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in Trondheim.
They were sent by an Irish professor at the end of the 19th century, so that Michael Foslie, the museum’s world renowned coralline algae expert at that time, could identify them. Since then the two specimens have been more or less hidden and forgotten in the museum’s storeroom. But now that this is Darwin’s year, the museum’s staff have wiped the dust off these treasures, which represent the only Darwin artefacts in Norway.
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Photo: Jan Chr. Sørlie |
Hybond AS has developed a new and revolutionary method for joining aluminium, called “cold welding”. The problem is that when two aluminium plates are welded using conventional methods, the strength of the material is halved. Hybond’s new technology maintains the material’s strength.
The technique also reduces material consumption, and consequently the weight of structures, such as housing modules for oil platforms, as well as ships, trains and planes.
The method is patented, and the market potential is considered to be virtually infinite. Hybond AS is a spin-off company from NTNU Technology Transfer. The photo shows (from the left) Hybond’s administrative director, Ulf Roar Aakenes; PhD candidates Thomas Erlien and Anders Lilleby, and Professor Øystein Grong, NTNU.
Published April, 2009
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