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Here are this week’s top sustainable innovation news, startup updates, and what thought-leader for sustainability, Janina Motter, is reading.

🦠 Bacteria Transform Plastic Waste into Eco-Friendly Silk

🐟 Ocean Power: Europe's New Frontier for Clean Energy

⛽️ Porsche's eFuels: The Revolutionary Green Alternative to Electric Cars

🍵 Tea Waste Transforms into Sustainable Battery Materia

🥛 King's College Breakthrough: Enzyme Recycles Bioplastics Fast

+ 5 Other Highly Interesting Headlines
+ 4 Sustainable Startup News Articles 
+ What Janina Motter Is Reading

Sustainable Innovation News Stories For This Week

Bacteria Transform Plastic Waste into Eco-Friendly Silk [LINK]

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers engineered bacteria to convert polyethylene plastic into biodegradable spider silk, offering a sustainable solution to plastic pollution.

• The bio-inspired spider silk, comparable to nature's Kevlar, has potential applications in textiles, medicine, and cosmetics, showcasing its versatility and strength.

• This innovative process, which ferments plastic without toxic chemicals or high energy, paves the way for future eco-friendly products, though scaling up production remains a challenge.

Ocean Power: Europe's New Frontier for Clean Energy [LINK]

• Wavepiston, supported by the EU, innovates with high-power water pipes off Gran Canaria, enabling clean energy generation and desalination, aiming for simple, efficient ocean power solutions.

• HydroQuest plans the world's most powerful tidal farm in the French Alps, predicting electricity production decades in advance, enough to power around 8,000 households annually.

• Ocean Energy Europe highlights the potential of wave and tidal energy to supply about 10% of Europe's current electricity needs, with successful models already in operation, demonstrating a significant step towards cleaner energy sources.

Porsche's eFuels: The Revolutionary Green Alternative to Electric Cars [LINK]

• Porsche champions eFuels as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, capable of powering not just cars but also industry, aviation, and shipping, aiming for a global environmental solution.

• The company is investing heavily in eFuel technology, partnering with HIF Global to produce eFuel in pilot plants across the globe, including an operational facility in Chile and future plants in Tasmania, Uruguay, and Texas.

• eFuels, synthesized from water, renewable energy, and carbon dioxide, promise a nearly carbon-neutral option for existing internal combustion engines, offering a bridge towards a greener future while the transition to electric mobility continues.

Tea Waste Transforms into Sustainable Battery Material [LINK]

• Researchers at Harvard have developed a high-performance sodium-ion battery anode from waste tea leaves, promising affordable, sustainable energy storage solutions.

• The novel "hard carbon" anode material, derived via a simple pyrolysis process, significantly outperforms traditional carbon-based anodes in capacity, efficiency, and longevity.

• This breakthrough, leveraging abundant tea waste and scalable production, could enable competitive sodium-ion batteries for large-scale clean energy storage, with an estimated cost of $5-7 per kg.

King's College Breakthrough: Enzyme Recycles Bioplastics Fast [LINK]

• King's College London scientists use laundry detergent enzymes to break down single-use bioplastics like coffee cups into their chemical components within 24 hours, a process 84 times faster than traditional composting.

• The enzymatic method transforms polylactic acid (PLA) bioplastics into high-quality, reusable plastic materials, offering a scalable recycling solution that could revolutionize the handling of single-use plastics.

• This innovation aims to create a sustainable, circular economy for plastics, moving away from fossil-based materials and addressing the global plastic waste crisis by enabling efficient recycling and reuse of bioplastics.

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Other News You May Be Interested In

Toshiba has delivered a compact and efficient carbon capture system to Tokyo Gas, marking a significant step towards scalable and environmentally friendly CO2 reduction technologies. [LINK]

Heat pumps offer significant energy cost savings and grid benefits, aligning with renewable energy supply and promoting stability with reduced emissions. [LINK]

Redwood Materials utilizes a Tesla Cybertruck for transporting 10,000 pounds of recycled battery materials, showcasing electric vehicle utility in heavy-duty tasks and advancing circular battery supply chain efforts. [LINK]

German researchers develop a hydrogen plasma process to transform toxic red mud, a byproduct of aluminum production, into a safe building material and a green iron source for steelmaking, potentially extracting valuable rare-earth metals. [LINK]

AI optimization in carbon capture systems at a UK coal-fired power station achieves 16.7% more CO2 capture with 36.3% less energy, offering a scalable approach to meet sustainability goals. [LINK]

Sustainable Startup News Articles

Norway's Oil Fund, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, reports its largest annual return, driven by investments in US tech and Danish pharma, and commits to urging oil and gas companies for faster sustainable energy transition. [LINK]

Tau Group secures €11 million in Series-B funding to boost its energy transition and decarbonization technologies, focusing on sustainable electric motor wire production and expanding capacity to meet automotive industry demands. [LINK]

Latin American tech startups are leading a green revolution with innovative solutions like low-carbon milk, AI irrigation, and digital platforms connecting investors to environmental projects to combat climate change and enhance sustainability. [LINK]

European startups are revolutionizing the construction industry with innovative low-carbon concrete solutions, drastically reducing emissions and waste through advanced technologies like carbon-negative materials, nanotechnology, biotech, AI, and digital tracking systems. [LINK]

What Brinc’s Thought-Leader in Sustainability, Janina Motter Is Reading

Sumitomo Corp invests in Norwegian company Inherit Carbon Solutions to launch a carbon removal business, aiming to sell CO2 offsets and handle 2 million tons of CO2 annually by 2030, targeting major buyers like Microsoft and Airbus. [LINK]

The Sustainability Open Innovation Challenge 2023, organized by Enterprise Singapore, invites global innovators to develop sustainable solutions across sectors like Climate Change, Green Buildings, and Sustainable Agriculture & Trade. [LINK]

Envisioning Partners in Seoul, Korea, announces the closure of its Envisioning Impact Solutions Fund at 44 billion KRW, focusing on climate tech investments and supporting startups in Series A and beyond, with contributions from global and local investors. [LINK]