Zero Emissions Challenge

Creating Eco-Friendly and Cost-Effective Super Magnets for Electric Vehicles

Challenge To significantly reduce the negative impact of climate change, we need to move from conventional vehicles to efficient electric vehicles. A critical component of the electric vehicle is the motor, which acts as the ‘heart’ of the car. Using a permanent magnet, rather than an electro-magnet, in an electric motor increases the efficiency by 15%, but the problem is that current permanent magnet motors use rare earth elements, which results in a cost eleven times higher than rare-earth free permanent magnets.  Additionally, the mining and extraction of rare earth elements poses a great risk to human health and the environment, meaning that current permanent magnets are not a sustainable solution for our transportation problem. 

Solution Our team aims to produce cost-effective permanent magnets, which will be used in highly efficient green electrical vehicles that do not use rare earth elements. This will reduce the CO2 associated with transport and minimize negative social and environmental impacts. A further advantage is that this new permanent magnet can be used in a wide variety of energy generation solutions such as wind turbines. This economical solution will help lead us towards a greener and safer future. 

UN SDG Alignment GOAL 13: Climate Action

Team Ansar Masood (Tyndall), Paul McCloskey (Tyndall), Wassim Derguech (Jaguar Landrover)

Making the energy and waste management sector sustainable

Challenge The Irish government have set an ambitious target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which can be achieved only by decarbonising the energy and waste management sectors. Industries, anaerobic digesters, incinerators, waste and wastewater treatment plants will have demand to reduce carbon emissions and implement a sustainable water management. However, developing a remunerative, resilient, environment-friendly technology to achieve this goal is still a challenge. 

Solution The HyBioSol team proposes to address the challenge by implementing a hybrid, bio-solar technology that converts CO2 containing effluents to biofuels and/or chemical commodities, such as bioplastic, while treating contaminated wastewater. The energy required for the process will be renewable solar energy, making the technology self-sustainable and environment-friendly. We will develop a versatile device that can be incorporated to any plant producing contaminated wastewater and gas streams. The biofuels and bioplastics produced have the potential of replacing the fossil fuel-based counterparts, contributing to the development of a green, circular bioeconomy. 

UN SDG Alignment GOAL 13: Climate Action

Team Paolo Dessi (NUIG), Pau Farras Costa (NUIG), Vincent Carragher (TCD) 

Minimising the environmental impact of additive manufacturing

Challenge Additive manufacturing (AM) is a relatively new manufacturing technique where material in the form of powder, filament or liquid is added layer by layer until a near net shape part is formed. Initial research shows that AM has huge potential to become a significantly more environmentally friendly manufacturing method when compared to more traditional methods. However, AM is not without its limitations as materials and other inputs to the process can contain high embodied energy, meaning that they can actually be less efficient if not used correctly.  

Solution The MESSO Research group, CIT, together with Depuy Synthes are collaborating to firstly quantify the environmental impact of an AM process using experimental testing. Once an in-depth understanding of the energy usage of apart from birth to death has been obtained, the AM method will be optimised to reduce the environmental impact of the process relative to traditional manufacturing methods. 

UN SDG Alignment GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Team Andrew Cashman (CIT), Michael D Murphy (CIT), Donal Og Cusack (Depuy Synthes) 

https://messo.cit.ie

Making sustainable transport available to everyone

Challenge NAPSS2030 challenges unsustainable forecasted growth in Irish vehicle ownership, which is due to rise by 35% to 2.56m vehicles in 2030 (compared to 2014 baseline level). This growth has adverse environmental and societal impacts both nationally and globally in terms of emissions, utilisation of natural resources, pressure on infrastructure and unequal access to transportation.    

Solution NAPSS2030 addresses the challenge of ‘runaway’ car ownership growth through the marriage of ‘Autonomous-Driving’ technologies & ‘Mobility-on-Demand’ applications.   Integrating these features within a National Autonomous Pod Sharing Service will create a gigantic breakthrough whose innovation centres around the following interlocking components: 

The Pod; An electric, 3 seat, 3 wheel, enclosed moped that is the most efficient mode of travel for 74% of ALL car trips with three persons or less.
Automated Roving; Automated-valet-parking and independent slow, occupantless roving.
Shared-Mobility; Smart-phone bookings, vehicle-2-grid communication and GPS tracking will allow up to 100% utilization 24 hours a day of vehicles. 

The NAPSS2030 vision is to remove 600,000 vehicles from our roads and to eliminate 2Mt Co2e by 2030. 

UN SDG Alignment GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Team Yuansong Qiao (Athlone IT), Leo Creedon (IT Sligo), Michael Newham (Call-A-Pod)

www.NAPSS2030.mobi

Reducing transport emissions through smart mobility

Challenge The private car is king: transport accounts for 20%, passenger cars 10%, of Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce this to zero, or close to, will require a whole-society shift in mobility behaviour from high- to low- or no-emissions transportation. Previous efforts have been piecemeal, such as individual initiatives based on only one discipline (e.g., Engineering/Economics/Psychology), or policies with opposing impacts (e.g., promoting the bike to work scheme while also delivering additional road capacity which fosters car-dependence). 

Solution SMILE brings together multidisciplinary expertise from computer science, engineering and social sciences to design an evidence-based mobility ecosystem centred on a trip decision-making app. The app will inform, educate and motivate users towards low- or no-emissions modes with a user-friendly interface making accessing eco-modes seamless. It will also personalise trip guidance to be optimised to the user, utilising sensors to harvest actual mobility behaviour and machine learning will optimise the nature and presentation of choices to maximise eco-mode choices. These data will be used to inform transport services and infrastructure planning and policy, and ultimately to bring about the shift in mobility behaviour from high- to low- or no-emissions transportation. 

UN SDG Alignment GOAL 13: Climate Action

Team Sam Cromie (TCD), Brain Caulfield (TCD), Shane Dunny (AECOM)

https://www.tcd.ie/cihs/projects/smile