Manufacturing has come a long way since Ford’s production lines. Modern manufacturing is becoming smarter. But making food package manufacturing smarter presents a host of challenges that the SMARTSPACK project needed to navigate through.
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Europe’s packaging industry drives 40% of plastic demand, yet Malta’s recycling rates remain alarmingly low. While 3D printing with recycled plastic offers a sustainable, low-carbon solution, repeated recycling degrades the material’s internal structure. Dr Zunaida Binti Zakaria explores this challenge through infrared thermal imaging to unlock the secrets of plastic crystallisation and bridge the gap between waste and reliable production.
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In a country with more metal bands per capita than anywhere else, you’d expect to hear sick guitar solos and wicked vocals around every corner. But for a group of students in Oulu, Finland, the only sound was the buzz of 3D printers, building the next generation of wearable rehabilitation tech.
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Hybrid Energy Storage Systems is carrying out research on the conversion of surplus renewable energy into hydrogen. This is an increasingly important means of reducing wasted energy, as Malta invests heavily into renewables. Jonathan Firbank speaks with project investigator Prof. Ing. John Licari about this project and Malta’s changing energy landscape.
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The earliest recorded attempts at hip replacement date back to 1891. At the time, ivory was proposed to replace the femoral heads of patients whose hip joints had been destroyed by tuberculosis. Since then, everything changed. THINK speaks to the MaltaHip Team to learn about their innovative hip replacement technology.
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3D printing can be an expensive sector to get into, but SPELL3D’s solution can help peel back some costs by combining the advantages of two styles of printer.
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The climate crisis urges us to use every means of reducing CO2 emissions. To reduce the energy consumption of electrical drive applications, researchers from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta are working on a hybrid inverter drive. This device will be able to adjust the power input to an electric motor, thus avoiding power losses. With 8 billion electric motors in the EU alone, even small energy savings can scale up to big contributions towards a sustainable future.
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The global cosmetics industry is a multi-billion euro business that shows no signs of slowing down. A large percentage of this evaluation is attributed to product packaging, which introduces a considerable environmental issue due to the skyrocketing demands for plastic packaging.
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Maritime transportation accounts for around 80% of the worldwide transportation of goods and plays a crucial role in sea borne global trade. It is the most economically efficient means for long-distance, inter-continental transportation, but it also boasts one of the lowest emissions per kilometre and unit transported.
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Building a nuclear fusion reactor is an extremely stressful process — especially for stress analysts! Sam Shingles from THINK gets in touch with Prof. Ing. Pierluigi Mollicone and Prof. Ing. Martin Muscat, who are working together as part of a European Consortium to bring fusion nuclear power to Europe.
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