Troubled times
August is the month when many of us go on vacation and should therefore be a happy time. Yet it's not easy to block out darker thoughts, such as the growing popularity of the AfD in Germany, the war in Ukraine in Eastern Europe or the frightening images of forest fires in Southern Europe, North America and elsewhere. And if we look a little further into the future, many of us are wondering how AI (artificial intelligence) will affect our lives. How will all these issues affect our industry? Our industry will still be a major player in the manufacturing industry. Electric cars, solar cells, wind turbines with their steel towers - these are the technologies of the future, and our industry is a major player in all of these areas. AI will certainly change every company. There will probably be fewer office workers. AI will deal with both customers and suppliers. In the workplace, robots will take over more tasks that are currently performed by humans. But one thing is certain - the essential tasks that our industry performs - finishing, corrosion protection, low-friction coatings and more - will all remain an essential part of our civilization.
From the sky high
Aerospace is one of the most thriving and dynamic sectors in the world, both economically and technologically. In June of this year, Airbus received the largest single order in history. The Indian airline IndiGo ordered 500 aircraft with a list price of 60 billion US dollars. The order is slightly larger than the previous world record for individual orders. This was also placed in March this year by an Indian airline, Air India, for 47 billion US dollars, in this case split between Airbus and Boeing. In May, Ryanair also ordered 300 Boeing 737 Max. Together with earlier orders, IndiGo has now ordered 1000 aircraft and is awaiting delivery. All of these aircraft have conventional engines that run on kerosene. Everyone agrees that civil aviation must become "green". But how? The British company Nova Pangaea(www.novapangaea.com ) has developed a patented process for producing bioethanol from agricultural waste and is building a plant in the UK (Fig. 1). But will this process be economically viable? I have already reported on a plan to convert household waste from London into biofuels for airplanes. But the quantities of such so-called sustainable aviation fuels are only a tiny fraction of global demand. According to IATA, the total global production of so-called Sustainable Aircraft Fuel (SAF) will be around 450 million liters in 2022. Three times this amount would be needed to cover 10% of British demand alone. We wish such ventures every success, but it is difficult to predict what the future holds for them.
Hydrogen as an aviation fuel for the future
Airbus is one of several aircraft manufacturers developing a "conventional" gas turbine that uses hydrogen instead of kerosene. The hydrogen combustion engine is an important part of the ZEROe demonstrator program. CFM International, a joint venture between GE and Safran, will develop the hydrogen combustion engine and prepare it for testing. Specifically, the company will modify the combustion chamber, fuel system and control system of a GE Passport turbojet engine to run on hydrogen. The engine was chosen for its size, advanced turbomachinery and ability to deliver fuel. It could become a reality in 15 years. Each technology component - the low-temperature liquid hydrogen tanks, the hydrogen combustion engine and the liquid hydrogen distribution system - will be tested individually on the ground. The entire system will then be tested first on the ground and then in flight. The first flight is expected to take place in the next five years. Rolls-Royce successfully tested a hydrogen-powered gas turbine last November. There seems to be little doubt that this technology is a viable option for zero-emission aircraft.
Aircraft - the electric option
Electrically powered civilian aircraft are already flying today, but so far only on test flights. Some of them use batteries, either alone or together with a fuel engine. Others will use fuel cells. For almost all players, the approach is to retrofit an existing aircraft with new propulsion systems. Ecojet(www.ecotricity.co.uk), for example, is planning to use a DHC-6 Twin Otter (with 19 seats) and then a Dash 8 with 70 seats. The first flights are planned for 2025 and 2027 respectively. ZeroAvia(https://zeroavia.com) has already carried out test flights with a 19-seater Dornier 228 in January. This was the largest fuel cell aircraft ever to fly. But just three months later, that record was broken when the 40-seat ATR 72 from California-based Universal Hydrogen(https://hydrogen.aero) made its first flight. The company takes a unique approach, where the hydrogen is contained in so-called "capsules" that are loaded onto the rear of the aircraft using a forklift (Fig. 2). This means that no special infrastructure is required at the airport. Stralis Aircraft in Australia(https://stralis.aero) uses a Beech 1900D with 15 seats, which has been retrofitted with two electric motor-driven propellers and is powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The range is given as 800 km, the speed as 500 km/h and commercial production is planned for 2026. The larger SA-1 will have 50 seats, a range of 3000 km and a speed of 580 km/h and is scheduled to take off in 2030. Airbus is also working on developing the same technology. There are also battery-powered aircraft, which I have already described. Wright Electric(https://weflywright.com) is planning to convert a BAE 146 to battery power to achieve a flight time of one hour and a range of around 450 km. These are just some of the projects around the world and probably some will never be successful.
Fig. 2: A so-called capsule with hydrogen, which powers the 40-seater ATR 72 aircraft from the Californian company Universal Hydrogen. Test flights took place last AprilFora complete or even partial abandonment of petroleum-powered aircraft, enormous quantities of "green hydrogen" would be required and thus a huge increase in electricity generation. In England alone, the amount of new electricity required would be around three times the total green energy currently produced here. In summary, we now have the technology to build zero-emission aircraft. But the cost of the hydrogen infrastructure to support it would be enormous. There is another problem. I spoke earlier about just some of the many new aircraft that have been ordered or are awaiting delivery. Such aircraft usually have a lifespan of up to 20 years. Even if electric aircraft were to become available in perhaps five years, there is no way airlines like Air India would be willing to write off their existing investments in conventional jet aircraft. We will get zero emission aircraft - but it will take at least 25 years to get there. I have tried to give an overview of the developments in fixed wing aircraft here. There are also many exciting developments in other types of aircraft, such as air cabs, which I will discuss in another issue.
A new life for solar panels
Over time, solar panels degrade and become less and less efficient. After around 25-30 years, it is usually cheaper to replace them with new ones. Experts believe that billions of solar modules will eventually have to be disposed of and replaced. According to one calculation, it could be as many as 2.5 billion solar modules, according to Dr. Rong Deng, an expert in solar module recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia. However, there are currently virtually no facilities for recycling solar modules and recovering the valuable materials they contain. A French company therefore opened a new plant at the end of June - the first factory in the world dedicated entirely to the recycling of solar modules. ROSI(www.rosi-solar.com), the company specializing in solar recycling that owns the plant in Grenoble, hopes to eventually extract and reuse 99% of a unit's components. Figure 3 shows the components of photovoltaic solar modules in a pie chart. The new plant can not only recycle the glass fronts and aluminum frames, but also recover almost all of the valuable materials contained in the panels, such as silver and copper, which are normally among the most difficult materials to extract. These rare materials can then be recycled and reused to make new, more efficient solar panels.
Fig. 3: Components of photovoltaic solar modules that can be recycledInconventional solar module recycling processes, most of the aluminum and glass is recovered, but the glass in particular is of relatively low quality, according to ROSI. The glass recovered by these methods can be used to make tiles or for sandblasting - it can also be mixed with other materials to make asphalt - but it cannot be used for applications where high-quality glass is required, such as in the manufacture of new solar cells. The market for recycling solar panels will be huge. Global solar energy generation capacity grew by 22% in 2021. In many cases, solar systems become relatively uneconomical before they reach the end of their expected service life. New, more efficient designs are being developed at regular intervals, which means that it may prove cheaper to replace solar panels that are only 10 or 15 years old with updated versions. According to ROSI, an estimated 4 million tons of solar panels will be scrapped by 2030 - which is still manageable - but by 2050 it could be more than 200 million tons worldwide. The first generation of residential solar panels has only just reached the end of its useful life. With these systems now on the verge of being phased out, experts say there is an urgent need for action. According to Nicolas Defrenne, France is already a leader among European countries when it comes to processing photovoltaic waste. His organization, Soren, works with ROSI and other companies to coordinate the decommissioning of solar installations across France, and at ROSI's plant in Grenoble, solar panels are carefully dismantled to recover valuable materials such as copper, silicon and silver. Each solar panel contains only tiny fragments of these materials, and these fragments are so intertwined with other components that it has not been economical to separate them until now. But because they are so valuable, the efficient extraction of these precious materials could be a game changer, says Defrenne. "Over 60% of the value is contained in 3% of the weight of the solar modules," he says. There is currently not enough silver on the global market to produce the millions of solar panels needed to transition away from fossil fuels, Defrenne says, and of course other countries around the world are developing their own technologies for recycling solar cells. Dr. Guillaume Zante from the Centre for Materials Research at the University of Leicester believes that brine is a credible alternative to the toxic mineral acids used for metal processing as it is very cheap. His team is now trying to apply the same approach to different metals from different waste sources, such as smartphones, thermoelectric materials and magnets, as well as solar cells. The team assures that in their new process, which apparently uses choline as well as calcium and iron chlorides, more than 90% of the aluminum and silver is recovered from the solar cells in just 10 minutes and that the quality of the silver is high so that it can be easily reused - couldn't this also be a great business model for German electroplaters? Source: https://le.ac.uk/news/2022/september/bsf-solar-cells
Science fiction becomes reality
Older readers may remember the 1990 science fiction film "Hunt for Red October", which describes a Soviet submarine with a revolutionary, virtually silent propulsion system that is almost impossible to detect. Now, 30 years after the movie, the American Darpa is working on a ship propulsion system that is similar to the "caterpillar drive" described in the movie. The so-called magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion system has no moving parts at all - just magnets and an electric current. It works by generating a magnetic field that is at right angles to the electric current. This creates a force - known as the Lorentz force - which acts on the seawater and propels the ship.
Fig. 4: The Japanese Yamato-1 showed that MHD propulsion is possible Without propellers or a drive shaft that whirls up the water, a functioning MHD propulsion system could enable fast and completely silent travel. Engineers have been working on MHD propulsion systems for decades, and the original concept dates back to the 1960s. In 1992, the Japanese Ship and Ocean Foundation built the Yamato-1, a 30-meter-long ship that tested an MHD propulsion system (Fig. 4). However, the propulsion system was so heavy that the Yamato-1 could only move at 6.6 knots. It also consumed a lot of energy. But the researchers say that the project proved that such a propulsion system can work and provide useful data. "Authentic information about defects and weak points, as well as what should be done if a Yamato-2 is built in the future," says Hiromitsu Kitagawa, a visiting scientist at the Ocean Policy Research Institute, which includes the Japanese Ship and Ocean Foundation. The Yamato project has shown that much stronger magnets and more robust electrodes - the parts of the propulsion system that come into contact with seawater - are needed. The first of these problems could be easily solved with a new generation of magnets developed for the nuclear fusion industry. However, these new magnet alloys would corrode quickly in seawater, so special coatings would be needed to protect them. Another problem that all electrochemists are familiar with is the insulating effect of hydrogen and oxygen bubbles that form at the electrodes and increase the ohmic resistance. When these bubbles collapse, they cause erosion of the electrode surface - another problem. The US government is funding a two-year research program, and the US Navy will be following this development closely. So "Red October" could become a reality.
The end of an unpleasant medical procedure?
To conclude the letter from England, a trip into the world of medicine: perhaps one or two readers have already had the unpleasant experience of an endoscopy, in which a camera is swallowed and attached to the end of a long, flexible tube so that doctors can examine the stomach or intestines. Now a better alternative has been developed. The US company AnX Robotica has developed a capsule endoscopy system: NaviCam - AnX Robotica. Its video capsule uses an external magnet and a joystick to move the capsule three-dimensionally in the stomach (Fig. 5). This should enable the first magnetically controlled capsule endoscopy in the United States and significant cost savings. It will also save many hours of time for patients and doctors.
Fig. 5: The NaviCam - AnX Robotica for performing a capsule endoscopy
Using an external magnet, the capsule can be controlled so that all anatomical areas of the stomach are visible and any bleeding, inflammatory or malignant lesions are recorded on video and photographed. Currently, the use of the joystick requires additional time and training, but software is being developed that uses artificial intelligence to independently steer the capsule to all parts of the stomach to record possible abnormalities. In addition, the videos can be transmitted for external review if a gastroenterologist is not on site to review the images. In initial trials, the capsule recorded a success rate of 95%. Texas-based AnX Robotica funded the research and developed NaviCam, the capsule endoscopy system used in the study. The NaviCam capsule has a diameter of 11.8 mm and is 27 mm long. It offers an image resolution of 640 x 480 (CMOS imager), a variable frame rate of 0.5-6 FPS and an extended battery life of up to 16 hours (at 1fps). Source: "Magnetically Guided Capsule for Assessment of the Gastric Mucosa in Symptomatic Patients (MAGNET): A Prospective, Single-Arm, Single-Center, Comparative Study", A. Meltzer et al. American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Vol. 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.igie.2023.04.007
