March 13th 2025

Author

Max Gray
March 13, 2025

The Daily Innovation Newsletter

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March 13th 2025

🌎 Sustainability

US Researchers have created a new recycling technique that uses air moisture and an inexpensive catalyst to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics into reusable monomers. This process, published in Green Chemistry, achieves 94% recovery in four hours without harsh chemicals or extreme temperatures. Unlike conventional recycling, it selectively targets polyesters, eliminating the need for pre-sorting. This breakthrough offers a scalable, cost-effective solution for tackling plastic waste and advancing a circular economy.

Researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have created the world’s first kilowatt-scale elastocaloric air conditioning system, offering fast, energy-efficient cooling without greenhouse gas emissions. Using shape memory alloys and graphene nanofluids, the system achieves a record-breaking 1,284 watts of cooling power, stabilizing indoor temperatures within 15 minutes. This breakthrough, published in Nature, could revolutionize sustainable climate control by replacing traditional refrigerant-based ACs.

An international team of researchers from the UK, France, and China has developed a membrane-based technology that extracts lithium from salt lake brines using electricity, eliminating the need for harsh chemicals and excessive water use. The process, detailed in Nature Water, selectively separates lithium ions through electrodialysis, producing high-purity lithium carbonate for batteries. This breakthrough could make lithium extraction cleaner, more efficient, and applicable to other resource recovery processes.

💊 Healthcare

Australian doctors successfully implanted the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart, allowing a patient with severe heart failure to live for over 100 days before receiving a transplant. The titanium heart, developed by Australian engineer Daniel Timms, uses a magnetically levitated rotor to circulate blood smoothly, reducing wear and failure risks. Unlike traditional mechanical hearts, this innovation could serve as a permanent replacement for failing hearts. U.S. trials are underway, and doctors hope expanded manufacturing will make the device widely available.

Spanish researchers from Universitat Politècnica de València and the Spanish National Research Council have developed a non-invasive method to break up kidney stones using "acoustic vortex beams." Unlike traditional extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL), which requires sedation due to intense pulses, the new "Lithovortex" system uses swirling ultrasound waves that apply shear forces to disintegrate stones more gently. The method is twice as fast as ESWL, requires half the intensity, reduces tissue damage risk, and allows treatment in outpatient clinics. A prototype is in development, with animal model testing planned next year.

Scientists from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have created a nanogel-based drug delivery system that delivers antibiotics directly into bladder cells, effectively treating recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs). The nanogels, combined with a specialized peptide, help transport gentamicin into infected cells, eliminating over 90% of bacteria in animal models. This method reduces side effects, minimizes antibiotic resistance, and could revolutionize UTI treatment. The study, published in Nanomedicine, suggests the technology may also be useful for other infections.

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