IGNITE SESSIONS – Special Edition – Technologies & Materials
NITextile participated in another “Ignite Sessions”, an event organized by Fibrenamics on November 22nd, where revolutionary trends and opportunities in areas such as energy, smart materials, circularity and low carbon were debated. This event also celebrated 12 years of Fibrenamics.
The coordinator of Fibrenamics, Raúl Fangueiro, opened another session of “Ignite Sessions” highlighting the importance of advanced materials based on fibers and composites, which are the core of Fibrenamics. He also highlighted the importance of finding sustainable solutions without compromising the functionality and purpose of the solutions, always taking into account the price, performance and market placement of the solutions.
Carlos Silva, Executive Administrator at InvestBraga, spoke of the importance of bringing innovation and knowledge centers closer to companies, which allows them to work in more competitive and technical markets. It also released the results of a study on the state of innovation and entrepreneurship, which placed the quadrangle formed by the municipalities of Barcelos, Braga, Famalicão and Guimarães at the level of large cities in terms of attracting investment and generating value.
At the Keynote held by Miguel Marques, president of the executive board of directors of Inovamar, the Blue Bioeconomy Pact was presented, a project that aims to explore the Ocean’s resources for the development of new products, processes and services by the end of 2025. This project involves 83 entities in the consortium and in addition to focusing on the search for new sustainable solutions, it also aims to be the starting engine for new businesses and industries in the areas of food, textile, pharmaceutical and cosmetics.
In the first meeting of the event, the theme focused on materials and topics of energy, low carbon, smart materials and circularity and included the participation of Sara Barros (Graphenest), Roberto Teixeira (Devan), Filipa Garcia (Veolia), Jorge Lemos (EcoIbéria) and Luís Filipe Silva (TMG Automotive).
Sara Barros from Graphenest highlighted the importance of graphene as a material with good mechanical, electrical, thermal and optical properties, in addition to being multifunctional, because it reduces the consumption of parallel elements and is also compatible with 3D printing. This material already replaces metals in the encapsulation of electric car batteries, which allows savings in vehicle weight and, as a consequence, an increase in autonomy. In the automotive components industry, Luís Silva reinforced the importance of TMG Automotive in helping manufacturers achieve their carbon neutrality goals, investing to this end in digitalizing internal processes, generating and processing data to make decisions, predict failures and avoid them. Life cycle analyzes of the materials they produce, waste reduction and the adoption of new raw materials such as recycled or bio-based materials are some of the strategies applied by TMG Automotive. In the future, they hope that vehicles will be the continuation of our living rooms and to this end they intend to develop materials with self-cleaning, self-regenerative, interactive and chromatic changes.
In the world of chemical formulations, Roberto Teixeira highlighted Devan’s role in the incessant search for new solutions that allow savings in resources such as water and energy, while maintaining the performance properties of conventional materials. To achieve these objectives, they rely on the application of Green Chemistry and develop green solutions from the origin of the materials. Devan also produces materials that enhance athletes’ performance in sports, such as innovative solutions for active thermoregulation of the body, activated with athletes’ sweat.
Filipa Garcia from Veolia revealed the company’s 3 main objectives, which include combating the scarcity of resources, water and critical raw materials; Depollution, water and air treatment; and decarbonization, with projects to use hydrogen in cogeneration instead of natural gas. The company focuses on new materials that are emerging to extract maximum value from its waste and thus avoid the mistakes that were made with the global plastics industry.
Jorge Lemos from EcoIbéria highlighted the company’s investment in solar panels, more energy-efficient motors, and future plans for the installation of batteries and solar parks, as solar energy represents 23% of the energy consumed by the company.
In the production of food-grade recycled PET, Jorge Lemos reflected on the importance of installing robotization technologies to allow for the effective and rapid separation of waste, and also the digitalization of the process. The use of by-products generated by the recycling process allows them to be used by other industries to produce other materials. For Jorge Lemos, Eco-Design is extremely important, as this is the only way to prevent multilateral materials from entering the recycling process.
The afternoon opened with a Keynote by Professor José Martinho Marques de Oliveira, Director of the Escola Superior de Design, Gestão e Tecnologia De Produção Aveiro-Norte (ESAN), where advances in Additive Manufacturing technology were demonstrated in areas such as printing and injection of new polymers, metals and biological materials. These are revolutionary technologies that can change the landscape of customization and delocalized production, but investment in additive manufacturing machines is still an impediment for many companies to begin exploring the technology.
The second meeting of the event was attended by Filipa Robalo (Borgstena) and Mário Brito (Smart Innovation), under the theme of technologies.
Mário Brito highlighted the nanoparticle solutions produced by Smart Innovation, which allow the replacement of petrochemicals and insecticides. Nanoparticles with active properties are attached to the materials and are always active, thus allowing fewer washes to be carried out, reducing water and energy consumption at the same time. Because they intrinsically bond to materials, they also have greater durability than solutions that are only applied superficially. The nanoparticles are silica-based, which makes them biodegradable.
In the case of Borgstena, Filipa Robalo highlighted the investments made by the company in the energy area, which allowed them to become users of electricity 100% from renewable sources, warning, however, of the difficulty of alternative solutions to natural gas and propane. Borgstena also already has technologies and machines that allow the reuse and recirculation of water and plans to invest in waterless dyeing machines with CO2 technology in the near future. Filipa Robalo also highlighted that despite investments for a transition towards sustainability, unfortunately price continues to be a decisive factor in placing orders, reinforcing the duality of sustainability vs. price that brands are willing to pay for it.