Eight start-ups were chosen to take part in this year’s Bord na Móna Accelerate Green 2023 programme.
The Accelerate Green programme is Ireland’s leading sustainability programme designed to scale-up companies who are developing products and services based on green innovation in response to climate action and sustainability challenges.
The current cohort of businesses employ over 70 people with turnover of more than €5m.
The eight start-ups will be at the upcoming Accelerate Green conference entitled ‘Ireland’s Sustainable Future’ on 1 June 2023 at the Tullamore Court Hotel. Click here to learn more.
CW Applied Technology
John O’Connell and Josephine Lynch, CW Applied Technology
CW Applied Technology is a dynamic electronic business based in Shannon, Ireland that has developed a green solution available for room disinfection which is critical to the electronics manufacturing industry and could play a vital role in the anticipated reshoring activity by manufacturers.
In particular, the business is addressing the issue of air quality, a growing concern for all developed countries.
“Legislation is beginning to appear in some European countries and it appears only a matter of time before the EU begins addressing the need to ensure indoor air quality standards are set in legislation and implemented,” explained CW Applied Technology founder John O’Connell.
“We carried out significant development and manufacturing work during the pandemic to make a green solution available for room disinfection based on UV-C. Our Muv-X Room UV Steriliser has been independently assessed at an FDA laboratory and confirmed as highly effective against SARS-Cov2 and CPE. Chemical free, it leaves no residues and the room is useable immediately after the Muv-X has finished its cycle.
“We have also partnered up with a Polish company who manufacture air purifiers and have designs in the pipeline for our own air purification product developments. All our products in this area use Ultraviolet-C lighting for purification. The global ultraviolet disinfection equipment market1 was valued at $1.3bn in 2019 and is projected to reach $5.7 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 17.1% from 2020 to 2027. Our ambition in this area is to grow both our range of environmental disinfection and air purification products and our turnover significantly within the next three years.”
EC Charging
Theresa Keady, co-founder of EC Charging
EC Charging designs, develops, builds, installs and maintains smart EV charging systems.
It was founded by Theresa and Matt Keady.
From its headquarters and manufacturing facility we develop a wide range of EV charging products and services. Its fully integrated, end-to-end charging solutions, serving Domestic, B2C and B2B customers, include:
- EV Charging equipment in AC (7/22 kW) and DC (25/50/150 kW)
- Planning and installation services
- Charge Point Management Services (CPMS)
- Dynamic load management included as standard
- Ongoing maintenance packages
- Equipment leasing
- Revenue share
- Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP)
- Ongoing development of solar integration and vehicle to grid (V2G) integration
HaPPE Earth
HaPPe co-founders Lisa O’Riordan and Dr Mary O’Riordan
HaPPE has designed an innovative, fully compostable, medical grade apron using bioplastics as sustainable alternative for healthcare providers. The single use apron disappears in approximately eight weeks and was a winner in the 2022 Health Innovation Hub Ireland awards. Currently only 10% of global healthcare waste is recycled. If the Irish health service removed single use plastic aprons, it would mean a reduction in plastic waste of 500 tons of plastic each year.
“It’s becoming very clear to us all that we are facing a crisis with it comes to plastic production and pollution,” said Lisa O’Riordan, co-founder of HaPPe. “We believe all communities must come together to address it. Here at HaPPE we are committed to doing our part and we are tackling it by reducing single use plastics in the medical industry with CE approved compostable alternatives. Our first product we have designed and created is a fully approved compostable single use apron. The HaPPE apron.”
The HaPPE apron is made from HaPPE’s Proprietary Resin composed of an innovative family of compostable bioplastics that have been developed over the past twenty-five years.
Key features:
- It matches all the safety parameters of current LDPE single use aprons.
- CE approved
- Class I medical devices Medical Device Regulation (EU) 2017/745(MDR)
- With optimal composting- aprons disappear in approximately 8 weeks compared with up to 50 years for LDPE plastic in landfill.
Hibra Design
Hibra Design founder and CEO Mike Keane
Hibra Design is an automotive design engineering company. They reengineer off-highway, speciality vehicles by removing the diesel powertrain and developing bespoke sustainable alternative systems such Battery Electric or Hydrogen Fuel Cell powertrains. This helps operators to reduce operational costs and increase productivity while providing healthier working environments.
“Hibra Design is the first and only Irish automotive design engineering company, focused in this area,” said founder Mike Keane. “We de-carbonise industrial vehicles by engineering Battery Electric and Hydrogen Fuel Cell solutions. This allows industrial companies to reduce operational costs, the fuel bill is reduce by over 50%, the maintenance bill is reduced by over 75% and environmental legislative costs are eliminated entirely. Alongside this the solutions produce healthier working environments and increase production efficiency.”
Keane pointed out that in Ireland alone, there are over 6500 vehicles operating across different industry verticals such as ground handling, quarrying and mining and power generation.
“Operators are experiencing exponentially increasing operational costs due to rising fossil-fuel prices. Coupled to this, the environmental legislation is placing stringent limitations on carbon-emissions with punitive fines and restrictions.
“However, for the operators, there are very few clean technology alternatives existing from existing manufacturers.
“Hibra Design provides a real-world solution for this problem.”
HUB360
HUB360 founders John O’Neill and Denise O’Kelly
HUB360 is a software platform that optimises logistics (incl. reducing carbon emissions) and deliveries for companies that use their own delivery fleet or third-party hauliers to deliver their goods. HUB360 is generating monthly recurring revenues, and revenue by delivering enhanced functionality and more modules over time into the same clients.
“We are focused on the inefficiencies when manufacturers are supplying direct to customers either using their own fleet (drivers and trucks) or subcontracting and are relying on labour-intensive management processes, with a heavy focus on manual paper-based transactions and with little measurable transparency over the daily activities undertaken,” said John O’Neill, co-founder of HUB360.
“As such there are major inefficiencies across all stages of the delivery process including the management of fuel consumption (scheduling of deliveries not optimised, routing of deliveries not optimised, trucks not full, idle time waiting to off load.
“HUB360 provides full visibility and management of sales order deliveries and delivery resources by transforming paper based manual work into streamlined and highly automated processes which optimise the movement of all sales orders and goods to create a modern and efficient delivery management system, making it possible to process and deliver more orders to customers.”
nanobOx
Dr John Favier, CEO and co-founder, nanobOx
nanobOx has developed a novel water treatment technology and was late last year named winner of the Big Ideas competition for tech start-ups run by Enterprise Ireland.
Dr John Favier, a serial entrepreneur and CEO, founded nanobOx along with Dr Mohammad Ghaani. They have developed a highly energy-efficient technology to oxygenate water using nanobubbles.
Many commercial bioprocesses require oxygen levels in process waters to be consistently maintained. This can be a significant operating cost for a process that can be critical to productivity.
In aquaculture, or the farming of fish stocks, for example, the energy cost of oxygenation can be the second highest expense after feed. It can represent 60pc to 70pc of operating costs in biological wastewater treatment.
Generating nanobubbles is particularly energy intensive, but with novel, patented technology nanobOx has managed to reduce the energy required to do so. Its nanobubble generators can be solar or battery-powered, and with no moving parts they are easy to clean and maintain. The company claims its technology is highly scalable and can oxygenate water at high flowrates.
“Our novel, patented technology uses nano-scale (< 1 mm) bubbles to dissolve oxygen, ozone and other industrially-important gases such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen in water. It generates nanobubbles by a passing a mixture of water and larger-scale gas bubbles through a low voltage electric field requiring only 10s of watts of DC power to operate at water flow rates of 100s of litres per minute. It also, uniquely, converts air into oxygen enriched nanobubbles that provide a reservoir of oxygen in the water for three times longer than conventional air nanobubbles. The technology is highly scalable, has no moving parts, is lightweight and readily integrated into existing water treatment processes,” Favier said.
NEG8 Carbon
Adrian Costigan and John Breen
Formerly known as Trinity Green Energies, NEG8 Carbon specialises in the capture of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It is an SME that was spun out from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 2014. The company has a broad-based scientific and business focus which is represented by the founders of the company and holds international patents in the area of carbon capture.
“CO2 in the atmosphere is the primary cause of climate change,” explained NEG8 co-founder and CTO John Breen.
“NEG8 Carbon aims to combat climate change by removing CO2 from the atmosphere using Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conclude that DAC will be required to remove up to 40bn tonnes of CO2 per year. At a predicted price of $100/tonne, the worldwide market size is €0.5trn to €4trn.
“Our aim for Ireland is to capture 10m tonnes of CO2 a year – equivalent to 25% of Ireland’s current annual emissions – in the next 10 to 15 years, a market size of €1bn.”
NEG8’s core product is a DAC module capable of capturing 330 tonnes of CO2 per annum.
“The modules are stackable so that for example, if a customer wishes to capture 3,300 tonnes/annum they would purchase 10 of our units. The income stream is the sale of the captured CO2 and/or carbon offset credits for removing a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere.”
Superfy
Superfy founder Ronan Quinlan and VP Marketing, John Dillon
Superfy delivers sustainable smart resource management solutions for companies for sustainability, waste, recycling, operations, workforce and fleet management.
“At Superfy, we are delivering solutions for the circular economy. In particular, we are solving the problem of being able to cost effectively scale nationwide materials collection and recycling programmes,” said Superfy CEO Ronan Quinlan. Quinlan co-founded Taoglas, a leading global internet of things (IoT) company, and has more than 25 years’ experience in the technology industry.
According to Future Market Insights, the global smart waste management market is estimated to surpass sales of US$ 2Bn in 2022, expanding at a 20% CAGR over the assessment period of 2022-2032.
Our software platform, sensors and smart containers track and monitor waste and recycling materials from bin to truck to depot and recycling centre, enabling operational improvements and efficiencies throughout the collection and processing value chain.”
To learn more about attending the Accelerate Green conference ‘Ireland’s Sustainable Future 2023 on 1 June at the Tullamore Court Hotel click here
