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Dr Aaron Marshall (left), and Chemical and Process Engineering Master’s student Jonathan Ring (right) receive
their Innovation Jumpstart award from KiwiNet ceo James Hutchinson.
New zero-waste tech aims to save environment from toxic acid waste
Researchers at the University of Canterbury
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(UC) have created a sustainable
technology that could revolutionise the
galvanising industry and save the environment
from toxic acid waste.
Associate Professor of Engineering
Dr Aaron Marshall and chemical and
process engineering Master’s student
Jonathan Ring have developed
an award-winning, almost zero-waste
global solution for treating waste acid
from galvanising, the process of applying
a protective zinc coating to steel or
iron.
The inventive process, which recently
won funding in the University’s annual
Innovation Jumpstart contest, enables
100 kilograms of zinc and 150 kilograms
of iron per tonne of waste acid
to be removed and recycled, instead of
the current process which landfills this
waste.
“The global potential is huge. The current
approach of neutralisation and
landfilling is simply not sustainable and
has the potential for serious environmental
impacts due to the toxicity of
this waste,” Dr Marshall says.
“We believe that our process could
be expanded to include acid recovery,
which would further reduce the operating
costs of the overall galvanising process
and almost completely eliminate
waste disposal.”
When fully developed, the zero-waste
process will have the ability to recover
$350,000 of discarded zinc from
Aotearoa New Zealand’s galvanising
industry annually and could also lower
disposal costs. Galvanised steel is used
widely in the construction of roads, railways,
other infrastructure, appliances
and buildings.
“Globally, the market for the technology
is huge, with estimates suggesting that
the Chinese market alone is worth more
than $120 million,” Dr Marshall says.
As part of his Master’s degree, Jonathan
Ring has been investigating a wide
range of existing technologies, most of
which are too expensive and complex
to be viable in the galvanising industry.
Together with his academic supervisor
Dr Marshall, who is an expert in electrochemical
engineering, they identified
a gap in the market for a low-cost and
reliable process.
The research won them $20,000 to
transform their ideas and research into
commercial reality, in UC’s annual Innovation
Jumpstart competition.
“The prize allows us access to market
analysis and to look at where we might
get further funding. These things are
critical in moving the project from its
early stages to the next level where we
plan to scale-up and prove our technology
under industrial conditions."
are using it more as the use cases
for additive manufacturing have increased.
Generative design takes that
another step by creating, or generating,
the geometric shapes from an
engineer’s requirements rather than
changing existing shapes. Also, unlike
topology optimization, generative
design creates many iterations, variations
and/or alternatives for engineers
to compare, rather than simply removing
unnecessary pieces or particles.
Additive will drive both generative
design and topology optimisation as it
provides greater build freedom to fulfil
a wider variety of designs.
Indigenous
Women’s Business
Network launch by
the ANZLF
The Australia New Zealand
Leadership Forum (ANZLF) has
announced the formation of an
Indigenous Women’s Business
Network (IWBN).
ANZLF co-chair Ann Sherry
AO says, "The IWBN will bring
together 50 First Australian and
Maori businesswomen from
diverse sectors to work collaboratively
to advance indigenous
economic development and to
promote the role of indigenous
women in business."
The IWBN is a part of the
Indigenous Business Sector
group, which was established in
March 2018 under the ANZLF. The
sector group co-chairs are Susan
Murphy, Chief Executive of Winun
Ngari Aboriginal Corporation and
Traci Houpapa MNZM, Chair of the
Federation of Maori Authorities.
/www.engineeringnews.co.nz
