3D printing of wool, robot for the elderly, eco-friendly cement, wooden wind generators

How to make furniture and home accessories from wool using 3D printing? What does the world’s tallest wind turbine made of wood look like? What can be made from environmentally friendly cement? What games can a robot play with older people? How to grow cabbage in “soil” made from plastic bottles? The answers to these and other questions are provided by old and new inventions with great potential, which Kommersant continues to talk about.

Felting and sculpting

Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma, in collaboration with technology company TFT, has developed a robot that can create three-dimensional elements from wool. The operating principle of the robot, which was named Flocks Wobot, the same as a 3D printer, but instead of plastic, it uses wool fiber and lays it into a given shape using a method similar to felting. Flocks Wobot can “print” something ready-made, large or small – a beautiful wool figurine or a dollhouse, or it can also produce individual elements for assembly into something more complex and large-sized, for example, into pieces of furniture: armchairs, sofas, poufs. At the same time, the furniture turns out to be soft, cozy, durable and completely unusual.

Flocks Wobot works with any wool, but the designer prefers to work with that produced by some European sheep breeds. Such sheep are bred not for wool, but for meat, so their wool is considered industrial waste. It is rougher and inconvenient to use for making clothes, but it is more wear-resistant. Moreover, before “printing” such wool does not need any special treatment; it is enough to simply wash it.

Wood-wind energy

Swedish startup engineers Modvion They believe that a material such as wood has great prospects in wind energy. And not for the construction of mills, as one might think. And for the construction of modern, powerful, efficient wind generators, or rather, towers, that is, supports on which the nacelle and wind generator blades are fixed. This is exactly the kind of tower that Modvion specialists built in 2023 near the city of Skara in Sweden. And now the wind generator on the wooden tower is already working. This is the tallest wooden wind turbine in the world. From the base to the top of the blade is 150 m. The wind generator generates 2 MW of electricity and supplies about 400 homes with electricity.

Almost all wind turbines in the world are built from steel, a strong and durable material. However, there is now a huge increase in demand for taller towers that allow the blades to capture stronger wind flows. The higher the tower, the wider its diameter should be. And, as experts note, it is not at all easy to install huge steel parts of the hull to build such a tall tower. If the steel parts are made smaller, then additional work is required to connect them, which increases costs and complicates maintenance. All this naturally limits the height of steel structures.

Wood, on the other hand, has no such restrictions. The walls of the tower are covered with laminated veneer lumber. The technology involves gluing as many as 144 layers of softwood veneer, each layer 3mm thick, to create a strong wooden panel, which is then bent to form a tower section. These finished parts are then delivered to the site where they are glued into cylinders, which are stacked on top of each other to form a tower, and connected with steel fasteners.

An interesting point: the wooden tower is almost indistinguishable from the outside from a regular steel one, it is also covered with a thick layer of white paint to protect it from adverse weather conditions. But inside, this building rather resembles a sauna – everywhere there is wood that is pleasant to the eye and to the touch.

As Modvion co-founder David Olivegren explains, “Wood and glue are a perfect combination that we have known for hundreds of years. And because wood is lighter than steel, it can be used to build taller towers using less materials.” Another convenience is that you can make smaller parts of the tower from wood than from steel. This allows parts to be delivered even to places that are inconvenient for freight transport.

Another advantage of Modvion’s development is that wooden towers are easier to build and cheaper to manufacture. In addition, the production of steel elements is accompanied by significant CO2 emissions, which has a negative impact on the environment and accelerates climate change. And making wooden towers does not produce emissions. Regular spruce is used for veneer, and, as Modvion notes, these trees are used environmentally responsibly. That is, when the 200 spruce trees required for the construction of one tower are cut down, new trees are necessarily planted in their place.

Modvion is preparing to build the next, even taller wooden tower for a wind generator and expects to build 100 such structures annually by 2027.

As Modvion CEO Otto Lundman notes, “the wind industry is now installing up to 20,000 wind turbines a year, and our ambitious goal is that within ten years, 10% of them—or 2,000 towers—will be made of wood.”

Responsible cement for the sea

Israeli startup ECOncrete, who brought together marine biologists and inventor engineers in his team, developed an innovative cement that is environmentally friendly in its chemical composition. As the developers say, “When concrete and oceans meet, marine life suffers.” And since it is still difficult to do without the use of concrete in the construction of marine infrastructure, ECOncrete specialists have set themselves the task of making sure that cement and the concrete made from it do not harm marine flora and fauna. And not only did they not harm, but they also became part of the natural landscape.

The result is cement with a chemical composition that is as environmentally friendly as possible. It is used to create a variety of structures, including breakwaters, breakwaters, bases for wind turbines, etc. ECOncrete specialists have also developed coatings for innovative concrete structures, and these coatings comfortably accommodate a variety of marine life from oysters to corals, supporting biodiversity.

ECOncrete developments are now used in 40 projects in 13 countries in 9 different seas, including Canada, the UAE, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Italy, Albania, Spain, and New Zealand. Among them, for example, is a concrete protective casing for cables laid along the bottom connecting the islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. A year after installing the protective casing on the cables between the islands, ECOncrete experts checked its condition and found that it was inhabited by marine life and plants.

And vegetables grow on plastic

Millions of people around the world do not always have access to fresh vegetables and herbs, including due to natural conditions and the lack of fertile land. Experts say this shortage of healthy food will only get worse with climate change. AeroFarms has developed technology to grow a wide variety of vegetable crops in large quantities all year round, without the need for good weather, sunlight or large planting areas. Specialists AeroFarms They grow fresh produce not in the fields, but in large hangars; the “beds” are located on the shelves of high racks.

In this case, the plants are not planted in the ground, which could cause dirt and the need to clean it up, but in a special reusable litter made from recycled plastic bottles.

The crops are not watered, but simply moistened with artificial fog. Therefore, crops require 95% less water and 99% less land than if they were grown in the field. This development is also convenient because such hangars can be built in any place where there is a transport network and demand for such products.

AeroFarms specialists claim that for each bed and almost for each individual plant, an individual regime of lighting, temperature, fertilizing, and moisture is provided. Vegetables grown in such conditions do not require pesticides, fungicides or herbicides at all, and fertilizers are used in very minimal quantities. Vegetables ripen all year round, and their quality and taste, according to AeroFarms experts, cannot be compared with store-bought produce. Regular customers of fresh vegetables include large retail chains, cafes, restaurants and even airlines. And the company has already received more than 75 different awards for breakthrough developments and product quality.

Talk to me Stevie

Dublin specialists Akara Robotics, which specializes in automation technologies in the healthcare system, have developed a robot to help people in nursing homes and other similar institutions. The robot with a very friendly “face” was named Stevie and was taught to perform tasks that brighten up the lives of grandparents. So, he can play his favorite game with one of the guests or teach him some new one, he can organize a game for a group, for example, lotto. He can carry on a conversation, tell a story, read a book, or help arrange a video call with family or friends. In addition, he helps guests communicate with each other by delivering packages and transmitting messages.

The developers are confident that Stevie is “a robot that can change the elderly care industry.”

This is especially important in a world where life expectancy is increasing, the elderly population is increasing, and there is a constant shortage of service personnel in social institutions. In such conditions, the staff pays more attention to the medical and domestic aspects of service and they have almost no time left to communicate with guests. Meanwhile, it is communication and individual attention that residents of such institutions most want.

Alena Miklashevskaya