Today's KNOWLEDGE Share : Hemp Diapers in KENYA

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

Why Hemp Diapers Are Better Than Regular Diapers: A Sustainable Choice for Kenya

As we continue to explore innovative solutions to Kenya’s environmental challenges, let’s dive deeper into why hemp diapers are a superior alternative to regular diapers. Here’s a breakdown of the key benefits:

1. Eco-Friendly & Biodegradable

- Regular Diapers: Made primarily from synthetic materials like plastic and petroleum-based polymers, regular diapers can take 500+ years to decompose. They contribute significantly to landfill waste and environmental pollution.

- Hemp Diapers: Made from natural hemp fibers, these diapers are 100% biodegradable and compostable. They break down naturally, reducing landfill waste and environmental harm.

2. Soft, Durable, and Absorbent

- Regular Diapers: While they are absorbent, they often contain chemicals like chlorine, fragrances, and dyes that can irritate sensitive skin.

- Hemp Diapers: Hemp fibers are naturally soft, strong, and highly absorbent(up to 4x more than cotton). They are gentle on a baby’s skin and free from harmful chemicals, making them a safer choice.

3. Sustainable Production

- Regular Diapers: The production of synthetic materials relies on non-renewable resources like petroleum, which has a high carbon footprint.

- Hemp Diapers: Hemp is a fast-growing, renewable crop that requires minimal water, no pesticides, and enriches the soil it grows in. Its cultivation has a significantly lower environmental impact.

4. Economic Opportunities for Kenya

- Regular Diapers: Most regular diapers are imported, which means Kenya spends foreign exchange and misses out on local economic opportunities.

- Hemp Diapers: By adopting hemp-based manufacturing, Kenya can create local jobs in farming, processing, and production. This not only boosts the economy but also empowers communities.

5. Healthier for Babies & the Planet

- Regular Diapers: The chemicals and synthetic materials in regular diapers can cause rashes, allergies, and long-term health concerns for babies.

- Hemp Diapers: Hemp is naturally antibacterial, hypoallergenic, and breathable, making it a healthier option for babies.

6. Reduced Carbon Footprint

- Regular Diapers: The production, transportation, and disposal of regular diapers contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

- Hemp Diapers: Hemp absorbs large amounts of CO2 during its growth, making it a carbon-negative crop. Its entire lifecycle from cultivation to decompositionhas a minimal environmental impact.

The Bigger Picture

Switching to hemp diapers isn’t just about addressing the diaper waste crisisit’s about embracing a sustainable, circular economy that benefits both people and the planet. Kenya has the potential to lead the way in hemp-based innovation, creating a greener future while boosting livelihoods.

source:Mercy Muiruri

#hemp #Sustainability #HempDiapers #ecofriendly

Syensqo and Politubes partner to develop slot liner tubes using PEEK and PPSU films

Syensqo announces strategic partnership with Politubes to advance electric motor efficiency Ajedium™ PEEK EVTubes slot liners boost cost effectiveness through improved processability and fill factor.

Syensqo, a leader in specialty polymers, and Politubes, a renowned manufacturer of flexible multi-layered spiral-wound tubes and insulator caps components, have announced a strategic partnership to develop slot liner spiral-wound tubes using Ajedium™ polyetheretherketone (PEEK) and polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) film. These spiral-wound slot liner tubes leverage the high-performance properties of Ajedium™ PEEK films, providing superior insulation for electric motors.

The unique product design enhances e-motor efficiency by up to 2%, enabling a more effective copper fill factor and improved heat dissipation. This allows manufacturers to benefit from lightweighting and reduced total costs, while gaining higher efficiency and increased packaging space within vehicles. “Over the past years, we've seen increasing demand from automotive original equipment manufacturers for EVTubes made with PEEK or PPSU,” said Federico Penzo, CEO of Politubes.

“We are thrilled to partner with Syensqo, a trusted partner in advanced materials, to meet these customer requests and deliver high-quality solutions.” Ajedium™ PEEK slot liner spiral-wound tubes address the growing demand for highly efficient, sustainable and innovative solutions within the electric motor market. "The automotive industry is undergoing a transformative shift towards battery electric vehicles, necessitating innovative materials that can handle higher voltages and perform better," stated Brian Baleno, Director of Global Business Development & Program Management at Syensqo. "We are thrilled to partner with Politubes to expand our Ajedium™ PEEK and PPSU slot liner offerings. This collaboration allows for greater e-motor design freedom, meeting the needs of automotive tier 1 manufacturers and OEMs.

source: Syensqo

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share : The self-charging human

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

 The self-charging human: A team at Deakin University is designing new ways to generate and store energy, powered by human sweat

If you’ve ever returned from a run or a workout in a hurry to ditch your sweat-soaked clothes and jump in the shower, you’ve probably never considered that your pile of discarded clothes could be a potential source of renewable energy, one that could eliminate the need to charge your wearable devices.

At Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM), researchers in the Future Fibres Group have been working on a design to power wearable devices using sweat, which could make plug-in chargers obsolete. But rather than extracting sweat that has already transferred to your clothes, it generates electricity straight from your skin.

Dr Ken Aldren Usman is one of the researchers at IFM working on the project. His vision is to redesign materials for a circular economy and create materials with “extraordinary functionality”.

Facilitating interconnected research is a core principle at IFM. Even the office seating plan is designed with collaboration in mind. One person might be working on batteries and the next on metals, promoting the exchange of ideas.

“The idea behind the IFM is to get people with lots of different areas of expertise collaborating,” Usman says. “From my point of view, it was really helpful to be able to ask somebody from another field to work with me.”

Among the researchers working on the wearables project are experts in nanogenerators (tiny devices that convert energy into electricity) and device fabrication. Usman’s expertise was in MXenes, innovative new materials that are a million times thinner than paper.

Usman wanted to build on his PhD research to understand how MXenes could be turned into a functional solid form (fibres). So he joined forces with his colleagues, Dr Hongli Su, who was developing wearable hydroelectric nanogenerators (also known as HENGs) as a part of his own PhD thesis, and Su’s supervisor, Dr Azadeh Nilghaz, who has experience in device fabrication. When the three came together the design possibilities expanded.

“When Hongli approached me, his problem was he wanted a material that would improve his device,” Usman says. “At that time, I had a material that had unique properties, but I didn’t know where to use it. So we were both in the perfect place at the perfect time.” The group focused on developing wearable HENGs, which harness energy from sweat evaporation and are part of the broader field of energy-harvesting technologies aimed at tapping renewable energy sources efficiently.

The IFM is based in Geelong, which has a long history of wool sales and exports, so it made sense to consider wool as a potential match for the MXenes.

“We all know wool shrinks,” Usman says. “But if you think of it another way, it means wool fabrics also could tolerate a huge amount of stretch. This is crucial for wearable electronics, especially for conductive fibres, as we need them to be robust and retain a certain level of conductivity.”

Reducing waste was also an important consideration. “Wool is also expensive. We thought any function we can add to wool off-cuts or discarded fibres would be of great value.”

The wool embedded with MXenes was successfully tested using a salt solution. Then it was time to confirm that it worked with human sweat. In the grand tradition of scientific breakthroughs, Hongli volunteered to test the product on himself.

“Su put on the prototype device and ran on a treadmill for six to 10 minutes,” Usman says. “The capacitor actually charged! So, we placed it into a small watch, and it was able to successfully power it.”

Usman believes their research has serious potential for wearable devices – and not just smartwatches. The implications for medical devices could be life changing. A device that never has to be charged can provide round-the-clock protection. It might also be the catalyst for changing the way we think about sweat. No longer something to be washed away, sweat might become a renewable source of power.

While an industry partner and a marketable product may be years away, that hasn’t stopped Usman and the research team from focusing on the bigger picture, and thinking of applications for the technology beyond something you can wear on your wrist.

“Imagine if you could eliminate the bulky power source on a spacesuit, and instead utilise the sweat from an astronaut’s body to power their suit,” Usman says. “I hope to see it 10 to 15 years from now.

“There’s still a long way to go. But, yeah, we’re dreaming big.

source:Deakin University/The Guardian

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share:Composite Essentials

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share:

How important have composite materials been during the history of mankind?

This schematic shows the relative importance of the four classes of materials (metals, polymers, composites, and ceramics) in engineering as a function of time!

As you can see, composite materials have been used by humans for thousands and thousands of years, however, their relative importance was considerably reduced until the advent of fiberglass composites! Since 1960, composite materials have become more and more important for the engineering world.

This uptrend in relative importance is evident and makes us very excited about the future of composite materials!

Do you think composites will eventually dominate the materials engineering world?

Image Source: Article ''Biomimetics and Composite Materials toward Efficient Mobility: A Review'' written by Joel Boaretto, Mohammad Fotouhi, Eduardo Tende, Gustavo Francisco Aver, Victoria Rafaela Ritzel Marcon, Guilherme Luís Cordeiro, Carlos Pérez Bergmann, and Felipe Vannucchi de Camargo.

Source:managingcomposites

Visit MY BLOG https://lnkd.in/fcSeK9e

#composites #fiberglass #polymers

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share :Crystallization Kinetics

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

How does crystallization kinetics possibly influence the PvT data we use in all our molding simulations ?

PvT are typically obtained, in theory, under "thermodynamic equilibrium" conditions. This means at speed so low that kinetics should be irrelevant.

The molding process is the complete opposite ! Very fast cooling will shift crystallization T to lower values. And, as also depicted in the figure, the solid state density will be lower (so specific volume, the Y axis, higher for the red curve).

Implementing crystallization kinetics in Flow Simulation is therefore quite a big challenge since cooling rate will be different from part to part, molding condition to molding condition, as well as within the same part (thin vs. thicker areas cool at different rates for instance and temperatures are different throughout the melt).

People who have attempted to implement such "dynamic PvT" or "fast PvT" often neglect to account for the extremely strong nucleating effect of shear-stress in the outer layers. Any DSC (quiescent) crystallization kinetic data will fail to predict the true kinetics observed under the very high flow stresses of Injection Molding.

Pressure is also a well known nucleating "agent" (speeding up crystallization, as seen in the classical horizontal shift of the transition zone in PvT data) but will also increase the Glass Transition temperature of the material which results in the opposite effect of slower molecular diffusion (higher viscosity) and hence somewhat slower crystallization.

Quite some work ahead of us to further improve the accuracy of Injection Molding without actually deteriorating the simulation performance by forgetting important pieces of this complex Physics !.

source:Vito leo

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share :Haldia Petrochemicals to start polycarbonate production

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

India's First polycarbonate production at Haldia Petrochemicals

Haldia Petrochemicals is likely to invest over Rs 8,500 crore (apprx 1 billion Dollars) for polycarbonate production in Bengal. This petrochemical compound, not in production in India, would be an import substitute. Polycarbonate is mainly used in the automotive industry which continues to grow in the country.

Since all polycarbonate in India is imported and considering huge demand in India and have signed licence agreement with Lummus Technology for the the production of Polycarbonate,this will bring more domestic product manufacturers to come forward to start the production of various products based out of polycarbonate.

source:Times of India

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share : CARBON FIBER ADVANCEMENTS

Today's KNOWLEDGE Share

CARBON FIBER ADVANCEMENTS

In the early 1970s, it was discovered that heating pitch (petroleum or coal based) would produce a high carbon organic precursor that could be used to produce carbon fibers. Pitch-based carbon fibers deliver superior modulus and thermal conductivity but come up short in tensile strength and compression strength as compared to PAN-based carbon fiber.

Continuing research and development on these novel carbon fiber materials in the years that followed led to the innovations that we see today. Carbon fibers from all three precursor types are commercially available today but PAN dominates with well over 90% of carbon fibers being produced from this precursor.

source:Hexcel-Tom Haulik