Public Funding for Beko PLC

Sunstore Technologies Ltd has invented and patented a new solar hybrid cooking and electricity generation unit; the Sunstorepowerpan XLM. The unit is designed to cook all food types, and can produce up to 2000 portions of rice (or equivalent) in any 24 hour period, using either a 30 or 60 litre cooking pan. It comes with an insulated solar pre-heat serving counter that can keep the food piping hot for up to 8 hours, so it is possible to serve a hot breakfast to around 500 people as well as produce 100 portions every hour. This makes it ideal for situations where large volumes are required eg community feeding stations, emergency relief set-ups or refugee camps, as well as schools where meals are often served to incentivise attendance. The unit can simultaneously generate up to 200 Watts of electricity to charge eg phones or computers during the day, or to provide illumination at night. This is done by burning smokeless bio-char in an enclosed and protected fire tray. 200Watts is significantly more electricity than is produced by the equivalent photo-voltaic panel array at less than half the capital cost. By means of a water tower, the unit can solar track, allowing it to be left unattended for several hours at a time. This water tower can also filter over 300 litres per day to provide safe drinking water. The unit is attempting to improve the quality of life for the 3.5 billion people currently reliant on biomass for their daily cooking needs, while reducing air pollution, deforestation and the associated species loss. It can provide electricity to the 1.2 billion currently off-grid. It can also improve human productivity by freeing up those currently spending up to 4 hours per day collecting wood. If deployed across Africa and Asia in large numbers, it will reduce global CO2 emissions (savings of up to 40 tonnes per unit are possible depending on what type of fuel is being displaced) while alleviating food poverty and allowing off-grid communities free access to electricity and IT connectivity. Sunstore Technologies in partnership with Defy ZA, is attempting to provide ecological nutrition and power to off-grid communities; feeding the people while protecting the planet. This patented technology is both disruptive and transformative and can, if widely deployed, alleviate food and fuel poverty across the world while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Our mission is to: Disrupt-Transfom-Diversify-Empower- Sustain

"Microfibres are the most abundant form of microplastic pollution in our rivers and oceans. Unlike microbeads, which are easily excluded from our toiletries and cleaning products, microfibres are formed through damage to a vital resource, our clothes. Wear and tear caused by abrasive forces in our washing machines result in the fragmentation of man-made textiles, forming hundreds of thousands of microfibres, less than 5 mm in length, which leak from our homes and drainage networks into the ocean. The filters in our washing machines cannot catch these fibres, and wastewater treatment plants cannot remove the millions that pass through them every day. Currently, secondary level water treatment removes around 98% of the microplastics that pass through them, however, the small proportion that escapes still equates to tens of millions of fibres per treatment works per day. Unfortunately, even fibres removed from the water and subsequently may be passed to the environment as digested ""sewage sludge"" spread on agricultural land. Inheriting Earth is working to stop the flow of plastic waste into the ocean. The project aims to reduce the level of microfibers released to the environment by understanding which washing methods create the most fibres (allowing people to minimise wear to their clothes as well as limiting the production of fibres) and by developing specialised filters able to catch the fibres we do create. This latter approach uses an innovative design that can be plugged into any machine and installed in a few minutes. It will filter fibres and other tiny particles smaller than a human hair to create a solution that everyone can be a part of. In achieving this we will also create a new reliable plastic resource which can be used to make new products, lessening the need for new plastics and increasing participation in the circular economy. Inheriting Earth will kick-start this process by partnering with major recyclers to repurpose the fibres, diverting the millions heading into the environment. The funding provided will bring together some of the best names in the UK industry including Adam Root the founder of Inheriting Earth (a winner of the young innovator of the year award), Dr Natalie Welden of Glasgow University, Dean Carran of JNDC Design consultancy and BEKO the international white goods manufacturer. Together, they aim to create a total solution capable of capturing plastic from our waste water and take plastic out of our food chain."

The surface engineering and advanced coating industry in the UK has made considerable advances in the modification of the surface energy of plastic for diverse applications such as anti-icing in aircrafts, self-cleaning windows and anti-fog safety glasses. The objective of this project is to evaluate and tune a range of surface coatings and treatments on plastic that have been developed for these applications and assess their feasibility as anti-fog coatings for use in a home appliance application. This could have benefits to the energy efficiency and food safety as well as an improved aesthetic effect.

The proposed research project is aimed at developing an affordable energy-efficient solid-state cooler that is based on caloric materials. Switching to such affordable efficient cooling technology would reduce the power consumption that is required for refrigeration and air-conditioning, which is rapidly increasing in low-income and lower-middle-income developing countries, and would obviate the need for greenhouse gases. This would ease the looming energy crisis, help protecting the environment, and promote the welfare and economic development of a large number of developing countries, for example by permitting setting up widespread coldchains for perishable foodstuffs, or vaccines.

The main objective of this mid-range project is to enable magnetic refrigeration technology to meet the needs of the domestic cooling appliance market. The primary goals are to reach levels of reliability and lifetime performance required for this mass market. The project outcomes will enable lower cost high-efficiency appliances for consumers, helping to reduce household energy bills. Furthermore, the energy savings (in Europe), plus the avoidance of polluting gases (in the Americas) will enable a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. The solution will also allow appliance manufacturers to comply more cost-effectively with increasingly stringent worldwide energy efficiency regulations.