Defence Australia is the largest Commonwealth landholder and one of the largest overall landholders in Australia, comprising 700 owned and leased properties over approximately 2.5 million hectares of land, covering all states and territories in Australia. This means improvements to energy consumption on estates may make a significant difference to energy bills and emissions.

Ventia proposed a program to assess the lifecycle cost of lighting and replace the inefficient lighting at Defence bases with LED lighting.

Reducing emissions and addressing energy transition

Lena Parker, General Manager Energy Solutions, said working with Defence Australia to enhance energy security and reduce emissions opens up opportunities to address the energy transition risk.

“Something relatively simple like upgrading to more efficient lighting can have a massive impact on energy bills, energy consumption as well as the environment,” Parker said.

Cross-country lighting upgrade rollout

87,000 new LED light fittings, over 80 shipping containers, have been procured for the lighting upgrade, and the installation phase is rolling out across 37 bases in Australia. In addition to the cost and energy savings, there is a reduction in maintenance costs as well as an improvement in light quality and the ability for ‘smart control’ of lighting.

Best practice asset management

As the asset manager for Defence bases across Western Australia, Northern Territory, Victoria and South Australia, Ventia is responsible for determining and implementing best practice asset management. This includes electrical infrastructure and covers planned, reactive and conditional maintenance, as well as end-of-life retirement of asset replacement and enhanced capability.

The program is expected to significantly reduce energy bills and reactive maintenance costs when completed.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/case-study/ventia-to-provide-led-lighting-program-for-defence-australia-924490840

Backplane Systems Technology has released iBase OFP-151-PC-NVK, an open-frame 15-inch panel PC and a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System) management solution. It displays the real-time status of equipment such as freezers, air conditioning, lighting systems and power meters, serving as a communication bridge between sensors and the cloud to transmit equipment operating status.

The platform features modularised functional blocks for customisation across all venues in the retail industry. The panel PC comes with easy-to-mount, open-frame modular design with optional coloured frames. It supports IP65 front panel protection against dust and water and is built with industrial-grade components and has fanless operation in temperatures of up to 50°C.

OFP-151-PC-NVK is installed with the Novakon iFACE Designer, a comprehensive object-oriented UI/UX graphics editing tool that utilises numerous industrial automation standard protocols, PLC drivers and universal IoT cloud protocols. This allows the platform to provide connectivity among diversified industrial equipment and devices, such as sensors, power meters, controllers, PLCs, IO modules and IoT cloud platforms.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/product/ibase-ofp-151-pc-nvk-open-frame-15-inch-panel-pc-1071650849

The 2023 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize) has been awarded to four Australian solar researchers for their work to develop Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) solar photovoltaic technology. This work, developed at UNSW Sydney, has underpinned recent exponential growth in high-performance, low-cost solar electricity.

Celebrating its 10th year in 2023, the prize is presented annually to engineers responsible for innovations that have been of global benefit to humanity. The IREG List of International Academic Awards regards it as one of the world’s top awards, with a reputation score of 0.51 compared to a Nobel Prize. The 2023 prize has been awarded to Prof Martin Green (UNSW), Prof Andrew Blakers (ANU) and solar entrepreneurs Dr Aihua Wang and Dr Jianhua Zhao.

Lord Browne of Madingley, Chairman of the QEPrize Foundation, announced the winners in London. The 2023 Laureates improved the energy conversion efficiency of commercially dominant silicon cells by improving the quality of the top and rear surface of standard silicon solar cells.

When sunlight — in the form of particles called photons — enters a cell, it excites the electrons within the silicon. In this excited state, electrons can move through the cell, creating electric current. The improved surface of the PERC cell allows the electrons to maintain this excited state — or move freely — for longer, resulting in greater and more efficient energy generation.

In 1983, Green and Blakers produced solar cells with 18% efficiency at UNSW, surpassing the 16.5% recorded previously. Over the next two years, they raised the efficiency to 20%, and achieved 21% efficiency in 1988 with Wang and Zhao. Green had theoretically determined the maximum achievable efficiency to be close to 30%. In 1999, led by Wang and Zhao, this was achieved.

Green’s lab at UNSW held the record for efficiency for 30 of the 40 years between 1983 and 2023.

“As engineers, we are constantly striving to improve the world we live in. As the world feels the devastating impacts of our changing environment and collapsing ecosystems, I feel passionately that we must rapidly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels if we wish to maintain the trajectory of human civilisation on our shared planet. I hope that PERC technology winning the QEPrize will highlight the importance of accelerated solar adoption to address climate change,” Green said.

The awardees published their findings without patenting after recognising the significant role PERC technology plays in the development of solar energy, to encourage further developments within the field and drive down the cost of production.

“This has not only been in developing new cell technologies like PERC, but also in transforming the solar manufacturing industry by using their expertise to establish manufacturing in low-cost regions of Asia. This is one of the main reasons that solar has suddenly become so cheap over the last decade,” Green said.

In 2006, Wang and Zhao set up China’s second large-scale solar manufacturer, Chia Sunergy. The first was established by another of Green’s students, Zhengrong Shi.

With the cost of solar power generation falling by over 80% in the past decade, PERC technology is the most commercially viable silicon solar cell technology used in solar panels and large-scale electricity production, accounting for almost 90% of the solar cell market globally.

Blakers said he hopes to use his platform as a QEPrize recipient to highlight the importance of accelerated solar adoption to address global warming threats.

“Solar energy is enormously abundant nearly everywhere. Silicon solar cells allow clean and affordable electrification of energy-poor rural areas across Asia, Africa and the Americas,” Blakers said.

As the global solar pathfinder, Australia generates about twice as much solar energy per person compared to any other country. Solar and wind are rapidly displacing coal and gas from the national electricity grid.

“Silicon solar cells provide the cheapest energy source in history. Universal access to very cheap and abundant solar and wind energy allows the elimination of fossil fuels, resulting in an 80% reduction in global greenhouse emissions,” Blakers said.

The QEPrize Laureates will share £500,000 in prize money and will be honoured at a presentation ceremony in London later this year.

Image credit: iStock.com/SimonSkafar

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/news/australian-solar-pioneers-win-prestigious-energy-prize-1050668965

Plastic waste could be upcycled as a raw material for making high performance porous membranes, which could be used by the chemical industry for the separation of chemical mixtures or to clean up waste streams.

According to Malinalli Ramirez Martinez, a PhD student who led the research in Suzana Nunes’ group at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), polymeric membranes could address many sustainability challenges. They have a selectively permeable porous structure, which can reduce the environmental footprint of industrial separations, help in the treatment of waste effluent and create access to fresh water.

Ramirez Martinez said traditional membrane fabrication approaches use fossil-based non-renewable materials, which negatively impact the environment.

“We wanted to take polymeric membrane sustainability one step further by replacing some of the conventional materials used for their fabrication with bio-based solvents and waste plastics, following the principles of circular economy and green chemistry.”

Polyolefin plastics make up almost half of all discarded items in plastic waste streams.

“Polyolefins are very popular due to their low cost and high thermal and chemical stability,” Ramírez Martínez said. “We find them in food packaging, reusable bags, shampoo bottles, toys and many more products.”

These properties make polyolefins suitable for producing hydrophobic microporous membranes for oil purification and other industrial purification processes. The main challenge for processing them is the limited range of solvents that can be used and the high temperatures required to dissolve them, usually between 140 and 250°C.

While the main solvents that can be used are usually fossil fuel-based, two bio-based solvents can be used to significantly improve the sustainability of the process.

“We found that terpenes — naturally abundant renewable solvents derived from nonfood biomass — could dissolve polyolefins at just 130°C,” Ramirez Martinez said. “Secondly, using these solvents we successfully made polypropylene membranes using plastic waste from food packaging, transforming single-use plastics into high-performance materials.”

These membranes were successful in separating the water-in-oil emulsions that certain industrial processes generate.

“The rejection values and oil purity we recorded were comparable to state-of-the-art membranes reported in the literature,” Ramirez Martinez said. “We consider it a great achievement to have proved that membranes prepared from plastic waste can have a competitive performance compared to those made from pristine materials.”

Image credit: 2023 KAUST; Morgan Bennett Smith.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/sustainability/case-study/plastic-waste-could-be-upcycled-to-clean-up-waste-216693516

Sydney Water will invest close to $1 million to produce and install five Gross Pollutant Traps (GPTs) over the next 12 months. These traps will aim to protect the city’s flora and fauna by sitting in storm drainage waterways and collecting tonnes of plastic and debris every year.

In the past year, 75 traps situated across Sydney collected 1500 m³ of waste across the city’s storm water networks — the equivalent of almost 9500 bathtubs of debris.

Sydney Water operates around 450 km of stormwater channels across the city. Gross Pollutant Traps are designed to catch debris such as plastics, rubber balls, Styrofoam, shopping trolleys, chairs, footwear, rubber tyres and car bumper bars. They are strategically placed to protect sensitive ecosystems and areas with high wastage loads, including coastal freshwater wetlands and the critically endangered flora and fauna situated there.

When debris is removed from the GPTs, plastics are recycled where appropriate and organic matter is processed for reuse as a gardening product.

Three of the five GPTs will be installed at the Parkside Drive Wetland site in Kogarah Bay and the other two will be installed at the Milson Park Wetland site in Westmead.

“The real benefit of this program is the environmental benefit. We see this as a tangible way to help ensure our wildlife in our wetlands continues to flourish. We all love healthy waterways,” said Lorne Gurney, Sydney Water Network Programs Scientist.

According to Gurney, these traps are beneficial in keeping waterways clean.

Image caption: Sydney Water Network Programs Scientist Lorne Gurney with a Gross Pollutant Trap protecting Botany Wetlands. Image: Supplied.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/water/news/sydney-water-s-gpt-plan-to-keep-waterways-clean-1169584488

Redflow has integrated its zinc-bromine flow batteries with Deye’s hybrid inverters. The inverter offers the ability to have a direct connection of solar and batteries in a three-phase grid-connected inverter and can also continue charging batteries from solar PV even in the event of a grid outage, as well as a backup generator input.

As a CEC-listed grid-connected inverter, the Deye hybrid inverter now has more options regarding the use of Redflow’s ZBM flow batteries. It is designed to simplify the way users connect to the grid and seamlessly integrates batteries and solar.

In tests, the Deye inverter demonstrated complete compatibility with Redflow’s ZBM3 zinc-bromine flow battery.

The Deye 10 and 12 kW three-phase hybrid inverters are fully AS4777.2:2020 certified and CEC approved for the Australian market and integrate with solar PV arrays, 48 VDC battery storage, grid and generator connections in a single device.

For larger storage systems, up to 10 Deye inverters can be clustered together in parallel to service large commercial site deployments.

Redflow will also provide the option to integrate the Deye hybrid inverter into its QuadPod energy storage solution — a custom-designed, scalable, 40 kWh, pre-wired enclosure.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/product/redflow-batteries-integrating-deye-hybrid-inverters-367688229

Veolia has been awarded a $280 million resource recovery (RRS) contract to operate several of the City of Gold Coast’s (City) recycling, resource recovery and waste management facilities.

As part of an initial seven-year contract with the City, Veolia has committed to a 5% improvement to the Gold Coast’s recovery rates by 2025, through optimised waste management and increased recycling.

From May 2023, Veolia will operate up to five of the region’s essential resource recovery facilities, including three community waste and recycling centres, and two landfills. Veolia will also run 14 logistics vehicles and work with the region’s social enterprise organisations to drive further environmental outcomes. Overall, approximately 100 personnel will be directly employed by Veolia as the RRS contractor.

The City of Gold Coast is the second largest local government and sixth largest city in Australia with a resident population of more than 633,000 and welcoming more than 10 million domestic visitors per year.

Craig Barker, Veolia’s COO for resource recovery, said the future of the environmental industry is growth, especially as policy demands an improvement in recycling and recovery rates.

“Australians create 61.5 million tonnes of waste each year and we only recover 60% of it. We know that by working with the Gold Coast community, we can recycle more, which would help to increase this number,” Barker said. “While the Gold Coast has not achieved 60% yet, our partnership will help support the Gold Coast in reaching this target.”

City of Gold Coast CEO Tim Baker said the City was delighted to be engaging an experienced industry partner to deliver on its mission to protect the health and safety of the community and the environment.

“This will be a strategic, collaborative, long-term contract with a single, experienced delivery partner that will leave a positive legacy for the city.

“As well as the direct cost savings, we expect to derive additional benefits of $35 million over the seven years, including avoiding up to $15.8 million in State Waste Levy payments.”

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/waste/news/veolia-wins-resource-recovery-contract-with-gold-coast-1076109586

CEMAC technologies has announced its new local ANZ partnership with recycling and resource recovery specialist BHS-Sonthofen, which has its headquarters in Germany.

Based in Victoria, CEMAC technologies provides engineering technologies to help the growth of the circular economy in the Australian and New Zealand markets. Its new partnership with BHS-Sonthofen is designed to further strengthen its market position and provide global expertise to local clients.

Focusing on its mission to ‘transform materials into value’, BHS-Sonthofen has become an expert in the field of mechanical and thermal process technology. With over 400 years of experience in process technology, building material machinery and recycling and environment solutions, and thousands of clients across over 70 countries, BHS-Sonthofen is said to be a key player in shaping the future of process engineering.

Of particular interest for the local recycling industries is the company’s capabilities in crushing, grinding and shredding of metal and e-waste. Its products, including the Rotor Impact Mill, Rotor Centrifugal Crusher, RotorShredder and Rapax pre-shredder, are designed to improve the efficiency of reclaiming high-purity materials from hard and complex input materials, such as mixed metal, mechanical waste, household appliances, e-waste and batteries.

The company assesses each material at its test centre to provide technical solutions that can generate added value.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/waste/news/cemac-partners-with-resource-recovery-specialist-bhs-sonthofen-1669969533

Researchers from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), based at The University of Queensland, say they have pioneered a simple, fast and effective technique to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) chemicals from water.

PFAS are synthetic compounds used in industry and consumer products since the 1950s, but they persist in the environment, potentially leading to human health problems. As noted by AIBN polymer chemist Dr Cheng Zhang, “Removing PFAS chemicals from contaminated waters is urgently needed to safeguard public and environmental health — but existing methods require machinery like pumps, take a lot of time and need their own power source.”

Zhang and PhD candidate Xiao Tan teamed up to develop their own PFAS removal technique that involves treating contaminated water with a new solution, called a magnetic fluorinated polymer sorbent. As explained by Zhang, “This solution that we developed coats the PFAS particles and then we can use a magnet to attract, isolate and remove them.”

Zhang and Tan used their method to clear 95% of PFAS from a small amount of contaminated water in under a minute, with their results published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. Zhang said the technique is faster, cheaper and cleaner than existing methods, as it does not require electricity — making it suitable for remote and off-grid communities — and can be reused up to 10 times.

“Our team will now scale up the testing and we hope to have a commercially available product ready in the next three years,” he said.

Image caption: PhD candidate Xiao Tan holds a magnet attracting PFAS particles to the side of a vial of contaminated water, supervised by Dr Cheng Zhang.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/water/case-study/magnetic-method-to-clean-pfas-contaminated-water-1491553092

Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) are drawing inspiration from plants to develop new techniques to separate and extract valuable minerals, metals and nutrients from resource-rich wastewater.

The ANU researchers are adapting plant ‘membrane separation mechanisms’ so they can be embedded in new wastewater recycling technologies. This approach can provide a way to harvest, recycle and reuse valuable metal, mineral and nutrient resources from liquid wastes.

The technology could benefit a range of industries such as agriculture, aquaculture, desalination, battery recycling and mining. It could also help companies rethink their approach to how they deal with waste by creating a way to extract value from wastewater. The research also has implications for flood- and drought-prone areas across Australia.

The ammonia and hydrogen molecules, among others, that are embedded in wastewater could provide electricity to power around 158 million households. 

“The world’s wastewater contains a jumbled mess of resources that are incredibly valuable, but only in their pure form. A big challenge researchers face is figuring out how to efficiently extract these valuable minerals, metals and nutrients while retaining their purity,” ANU plant scientist Associate Professor Caitlin Byrt said. 

“The Australian mining industry for example creates more than 500 million tonnes of waste per year, and these wastes are rich in resources like copper, lithium and iron. But at the moment the liquid waste is just a problem; it can’t be dumped and it can’t be used. It’s just waste unless each resource can be separated out in a pure form.

“This is particularly the case in the battery recycling space; you have this huge, rich source of lithium inside dead batteries, but we can’t yet extract or reuse it efficiently. Harvesting resources from industrial and urban waste is a key step towards transitioning to a circular green economy and building a sustainable future, as well as reducing our carbon footprint.”

The researchers investigated the specialised molecular mechanisms that help plants recognise and separate different metal, mineral and nutrient molecules contained in soil, allowing them to sort the good from the bad — an essential biological process necessary for their growth and development.

“Resources such as boron, iron, lithium and phosphorus are used in battery technologies and plants are masters at separating these types of resources,” Byrt said.

Ammonia, a compound used to create fertiliser and an essential material in crop production, is another key resource scientists are looking to extract from liquid waste solutions.

“Fertiliser costs are going through the roof, which puts a lot of pressure on Australian farmers to be able to afford these higher prices and yet we’re wasting huge proportions of these molecules and that’s causing environmental problems,” Byrt said.

“Ammonia is also a critical storage molecule for hydrogen fuels. So, as we continue to develop hydrogen fuel industries, there will be an increase in demand for ammonia for use as a storage molecule, because that’s how the hydrogen fuel industry will be able to transport the stored hydrogen around and ultimately use it as a potential fuel source for fuelling cars and other technologies.”

Byrt said advances in precision separation technology could also offer security to flood- and drought-prone communities across Australia by providing them with portable, secure and reliable access to clean drinking water in the face of worsening weather events as a result of climate change.

“Clean water and the security of nutrient resources underpin agricultural productivity. Development of technologies to sustainably manage these resources is essential for food security in Australia and globally,” she said.

The research has been published in New Phytologist.

Image credit: Nic Vevers/ANU

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/wastewater/article/sorting-out-the-jumble-of-valuable-resources-in-wastewater-1446256338