Participate in insightful discussions with leading experts about mid-infrared detection at the free upcoming hybrid event, Beyond Gas Sensing Panel Discussion, hosted by Hamamatsu Photonics.

Explore how the mid-infrared space can be transformed using advanced mid-infrared technology and its transformative potential. Expect to delve into the future of IR detectors, identify industry challenges, uncover recent developments, and learn about potential applications across various sectors.

Event Details:

Date: Wednesday, June 19th, 2024.

Time: In person from 13:00 to 16:00 BST OR online from 14:00 to 16:00 BST

Presence: Online or in-person

Venue: Science Gallery, King’s College London, Guy’s Campus, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 9GU

Catering: Lunch and refreshments will be provided for all in-person attendees.

Why Attend?

Industry Insights: Gain valuable perspectives from panelists with diverse application backgrounds including biotech, environmental science, industrial applications, security, and academic research.

Advanced Technology: Gain valuable perspectives and expert advice on developing advanced technologies that redefine gas sensing boundaries.

Networking Opportunities: Connect with peers and professionals in the industry, fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange.

Come and join this engaging discussion!

Register for your free ticket here.

ADBA National Conference
11th December
One Great George Street, London

ADBA’s flagship event returns in December 2019, marking 10 years of ADBA and 10 years before the UK government must reduce emissions by 57%. If this is delivered, the UK will be on track to meet its 2050 commitment: “net zero” greenhouse gases by 2050.

The UK anaerobic digestion industry has a critical role to play in helping the government achieve this. This year’s conference will discuss what this is and how we can realise it. Therefore, the central theme is: There’s no Net Zero without Biogas.

As well as debating this issue with leading industry figures, delegates will dive in to specific sectors such as farming, heating, transport, digestates, CO2 and end of life and learn more about how AD can help end waste, deliver the circular economy and tackle the climate crisis.

There will also be extensive opportunities to network and review the latest AD products and services with our exhibitors.

A must-attend event for all AD professionals, local authorities, academics and government officials to stay informed about the scale of the impact biogas can have on the 2050 commitment.

Posted on behalf of The Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA), for further information please visit their website

HOW sustainable is the food and drink industry? When you look at some of the statistics it’s tempting to conclude that its eyes have so far been bigger than its belly when it comes to things like renewable energy and embracing the circular economy. The big 10 food and drink companies in the world contribute more greenhouse gases than Scandinavia; if they were a country, they’d be the 20th most polluting in the world.
Vying for an opportunity to tell a different story, or at least to discuss the challenges at hand, were a panel that included Robert Ramsay, founder of “Scotland’s largest precision farming company”, Soil Essentials; Julie Hesketh-Laird, director of technical operations (and deputy CEO) with the Scotch Whiskey Association, the principal trade association for the sector; Andrew Lyle, md of renewable energy firm Locogen; and Willie Ferguson, key account manager, retail food and drink, with Resource Efficient Scotland. The event was organised by networking organisation eCoConnect.

An industry worth £16.5 billion (citing 2015 figures), the food and drink sector faces huge challenges in the years ahead, addressing the needs of a rising global population in an era of growing resource scarcity. The food system needs to become increasingly sustainable and to address the challenges of climate change. Current estimates hold that food production will have to increase by 40% by 2040, and 70% by 2050, according to the moderator for the evening, Fraser Geddes, a partner with law firm Anderson Strathearn.
The progress made towards these goals already is “impressive” but, looking to the future, what areas present the greatest opportunities for cleantech? And what are the main barriers to its use in the sector?
Ferguson – paraphrasing a well-known farmer in Scotland, Jim McLaren – mentioned that, if you’re looking to find a receptive ear in the farming community, it’s a case of “don’t talk to them about how to reduce carbon footprint, but how to reduce costs”. The challenging cost constraints in this sector should prompt a rethink of business models on the part of food retailers. But the agricultural sector has already seen a lot of investment in renewables, and it has the land and space to make the most of such opportunities.
Andrew Lyle said that wind and solar are less of a safe bet for the food and drink industry, the former being dogged by planning issues and the latter unable to make much of an impact on energy requirements. His company has looked at biomass heating for this sector, which was “challenging”. But there is a great opportunity to generate clean power by feeding the waste products from this sector into AD systems. There is a good baseload and the energy production is “not seasonal”, so offers a fairly ongoing source of power.
Robert Ramsay concurred that for farmers “the pressure is all on price, not carbon footprint”, and described some of the initiatives underway in the precision farming sector. ESA is putting up satellites that can give weekly reports on crops, feedback that can be used to optimise yields. There are also tractor-based systems that can gather this kind of information.

Two-headed consumer
Speaking on behalf of the whiskey industry, Hesketh-Laird said: “Our consumers, especially in overseas markets, want: (1) for us to be the greenest, and (2) to be able to pick up a bottle and have something very high end.” This problem of the “two-headed consumer” is one for which “help is needed from the packaging industry to crack”. Her sector has been setting itself very challenging targets with packaging, but consumer demand is going in the opposite direction.
She added that the agricultural impact of whiskey distilleries is “pretty big”, and accounts for “almost half of what we do”. So there is definitely a need to engage with the agricultural supply chain. She cited in particular the opportunity to turn Scotland into a “real centre of excellence for barley”. A crucial ingredient in malts, she alluded to a need for Scotland to do more to look after its barley supply. “If we want to keep our barely scientists here, we need investment.”
Another questioner seemed to bemoan the missed opportunities in the food and drink industry for making more use of waste heat. Speaking about Scotch whiskey, Hesketh-Laird mentioned the strict regulations that affect how you can produce Scotch whiskey. The Scotch Whiskey Research Institute at Riccarton are doing their best to test at the edges of legislation and science, she said, and “who knows when the first electric still might come online”. There is serious work going on in every distillery in Scotland, to find ways to capture heat and use it to preheat the mash tun, for instance. The Climate Change Levy has been a big driver here, as have energy costs. And the whiskey industry has been “a leader in switching sources of energy” towards more renewable options. Now 16% of all energy used in distilling in Scotland is non-fossil. “So we’re doing a lot but it’s research that will get us to the next level,” she said.

Somewhere to take the heat
As for the recovery of waste heat, not all distilleries are located in areas where there is an obvious heat sink. “We are trying to map out where the opportunities are,” she said, but – speaking for much of the sector – concluded: “Until we can store heat, it’s going to be difficult.” One place where it has worked is the Morrison-Bowmore distillery on Islay, where waste heat is piped into a swimming pool next door.
Another audience member asked about the contentious issue of growing crops to provide feedstocks for AD systems. Ramsay said: “People in the west don’t starve to death, but they do freeze to death.” People seem content with the growing of flowers on agricultural land, so why not fuel? “It’s crazy this view that food is sacrosanct,” he said.

Fuel crop contention
Hesketh-Laird said there had been controversy over distillery companies using animal feed and turning it into energy. But she felt the conventional objections to what arguably amounted to taking feed off the UK market and turning it into fuel didn’t really stack up in the face of a declining dairy industry, especially in Scotland. “In the past decade spirits production has doubled while cattle has declined,” she said, adding: “I’m confident with where we’re at.”
Near the end of the session, an audience member asked: “Is it possible to describe food and drink as sustainable? And who is educating the consumer?”
“Crikey,” said Hesketh-Laird. “Can we educate them? We do, we try.” She mentioned that, with respect to packaging, some of the barriers are technological. “If we can lightweight the really fancy bottles, that’s a big opportunity,” she said, before concluding that “yes”, her industry is sustainable, but then it depends how you define sustainable.

Reducing waste with the retailer
Lyle felt that “no, it’s not sustainable now”, but could become so, with investment. Ferguson mentioned the Co-operative Food supermarket, which has been working with Scottish potato farmers on reducing waste. Findings had shown that the potato sector had waste levels of 60%, around 30 to 40% of which were commonly attributable to retailers. Steps taken to reduce the waste on this side have included a more judicious choice of which varieties of potato to use, bearing in mind that some waste more easily. Improvements have also been made with storage and the griddle sizes used during processing, a factor that has saved a lot of stock from becoming cattle feed. On the consumer side of things, he said: “I think we’ve got to uneducate the consumer”, referring to the way we are all educated to look for perfect potatoes when we go to the supermarket. “Just because they’ve got a blemish [ we don’t pick them ] – they’re still nutritious, and perfectly good value.” But the retailer or supplier is guilty of this kind of waste too, he said, citing a company in Yorkshire with a machine that photographed potatoes, automatically chucking out the ones that didn’t look right.
All in, it was an event that combined generous usage of the word “opportunity” with seemingly rueful acceptance of the cost-driven realities that have driven many aspects of the food and drink sector up until now. Changes in business models, consumer attitudes and technology will be needed to move things on, the panel seemed to think.

SWEDISH indoor air-cleaning specialist Blueair picked up a couple of accolades for two of the products it launched at last year’s IFA Berlin tech show in the German capital. Delivering “off-the-scale performance”, Blueair’s Pro XL and eye-catching Blue indoor air purifiers were chosen as Innovation & Design Award winners from over 50 companies launching new products during ShowStoppers, a showcase at the event. “Both Pro XL and Blue push the boundaries of design and technology, harnessing multiple technologies to create a wow factor for anyone who wants to breathe air free of the myriad airborne contaminants in modern homes and offices,” said Blueair.

WELL diamonds are certainly hard wearing, and in the case of a new water sensor under development, this property is being harnessed for monitoring heavy metals in lakes, rivers and other harsh aqueous environments.
Research by Zoe Ayres at the University of Warwick into the use of a boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrode to detect and quantify heavy metals in aqueous environments has won the SWIG 2014 Early Career Researcher Competition. The BDD makes an ideal electrode material for electrochemical x-ray fluorescence because of its superior electrochemical properties as well as its x-ray transparency. The novel method under development is cheaper and simpler than the alternatives and shows huge potential.
Zoe Ayres won the first prize for the 2014 SWIG Early Career Researcher Competition, and was presented with a trophy and cheque for £1,000 during the gala dinner at WWEM 2014, where she had earlier presented her research in the poster exhibition area entitled ‘Heavy metal detection in aqueous environments’.
SWIG is a not for profit knowledge exchange and networking organisation focused on the use of sensor and associated technologies for use in areas like the water industry (www.swig.org.uk).

THIS year’s Pollutec conference and exhibition will once again have a major focus on ‘the sustainable city’. It takes place at Lyon Eurexpo, Lyon, from 2 to 5 December.
The event purports to draw on the expertise of exhibitors to highlight solutions for things like new kinds of energy efficient urban services, and the smart fitting-out of buildings and spaces.
In order to provide the answers, the show is hosting an international symposium, a workshop forum and a visitor trail taking in relevant solutions at the show as well as arranging visits to model sites in the Rhône-Alpes region.

The Sustainable City Solutions symposium, organised in partnership with the ERAI, takes place over 3 and 4 December and features reports from cities such as New York, Sao Paulo, Bristol and Shenyang. It will focus on the theme of financing more economical and sustainable urban projects (with representatives present from the EIB, the OECD and the WBCSF). The programme also includes exclusive presentations of solutions for smart urban monitoring and management.
In parallel, a Sustainable City Forum will host a series of lectures on subjects as varied as the challenges climate change presents for cities, new planning tools, mobility and transport, optimised water management, energy efficiency, high performance lighting, managing building and civil engineering waste, and restoring ecological continuity.
Advances in various high profile projects will also be presented, such as the European Transform project, which aims to support energy planning by modelling the requirements of entire areas. There will also be details of the Greenlys project in Grenoble, covering smart electricity grid usage, active public lighting and new services and mobility practices. In addition, the French Ministry of the Environment, Sustainable Development and Energy will present the results of the “Rethinking cities in a post-carbon society” research programme, with a review of results one year on from its inception. Finally, the show’s TV studio will host a Big Debate on the subject of “the sustainable city as a tool for economic development”, with a presentation of model cities from around the world.

A combative Q&A session followed Eric Pickles presentation to the RWM show at the Birmingham NEC on 17 September.

The Secretary of State for Communities and local Government presented a ministerial keynote titled “Delivering comprehensive waste collections for local taxpayers”. The audience appeared to comprise representatives from local authorities, as well as sectors like waste and environmental consultancy.

His opening remarks highlighted waste collection as the most visible of all public services. He lauded developments introduced by his own administration, and the growing recognition that, where waste collection is concerned, “the public sector can work with the private without losing sovereignty”.

He derided the previous government’s decision to move from weekly to fortnightly public collections “with no mandate”. During its tenure in government, bin collection became secondary to achieving “arbitrary goals”, he said, such as meeting targets in relation to energy reduction and climate change. It was a time, he said, when the legal obligation to collect household rubbish was “covertly watered down”.

Also reprehensible, he suggested, was the focus on catching out homeowners who were not properly complying with instructions about putting their bins out at the right time and so on, in some cases spying on them.

The speech reiterated his commitment to weekly refuse collections, and his belief that this is what the public wants. One audience member addressed his department’s “bribe to local authorities to go back to weekly collections” – a move he believed had been widely condemned. He asked: “So how it is you know better than us – who are in regular contact with our residents – what it is they want?”

He responded that one council leader had approached him at a reception in Downing Street to ask ‘what are you banging on about weekly collections for? We’ve trained the electorate’ away from them. “I’m not in the business of training the electorate,” he said, “but to give them what they want.” Responding to further sounds of audience dissent he said: “Do a survey!”

When the session chair, CIWM president Steve Lee, appeared to be about to ask for a show of hands from the audience, to indicate whether people believed weekly collections were the way to reduce costs for council waste collection, Pickles objected that the chair was trying to advance his own agenda, and quickly gestured towards another raised hand in the audience.

The Q&A session appeared to grow increasingly combative. “At what point are you going to make the leap from seeing waste as something to be buried and burnt, towards a circular economy?” asked a representative from SLR Consulting.

Pickles said he was “really keen” on recycling, citing great examples he had seen, including mechanical separation of material from the kerbside, and initiatives to recycle cooking oil.

When asked why recycling rates in England appear to be stalling, he blamed factors such as the multiplicity of different-coloured bins people have to use. “I’m a big fan of one bin,” he said. Later he added: “I look to the sector and local authorities to bring an increasing degree of rationalisation. But I hope we can bring the public with us, not treat them like naughty children.”

Other questioners were brushed aside. “Do you not have a duty to taxpayers that resources are conserved for the future?” Pickles: “Yes. Next question.”