NOVA Innovation award winners announced

Saint-Gobain announced the winners of the NOVA Innovation Competition 2015 at the Greenbuild conference in Washington DC this week: 10x Technology and Ecovative Design.

This competition, organised by the NOVA External Venturing group, recognises start-ups offering innovative solutions in the fields of building materials, energy efficiency, clean technology, integrated lighting solutions, construction services, and innovative materials and technologies.

10x Technology (Illinois, United States) has developed a manufacturing platform that transforms basic materials into micro and nanostructured products. Its roll-to-roll process uses polymers, metals, and ceramics to obtain high value-added products used in the energy, medical, electronics, transportation, defense, and habitat markets for the differentiating properties they get from the surface structure. The US-based start-up, founded in 2004, is constantly exploring with its customers new potential applications, and proposes numerous micro-structured products including infra-red optical lenses, drug delivery devices, microfluidic systems for medical diagnostics, or films which, when applied to windows, help provide more daylight in tertiary buildings such as offices, schools or hospitals.

Ecovative Design (New York, United States) creates innovative biocomposite materials from agricultural byproducts and mushroom mycelium – a filamentous tissue that acts as an adhesive. Ecovative Design proposes an environmentally friendly process, which doesn’t use petroleum, chemicals, or toxic resins, with an LCA-verified impact, using renewable and cheap raw materials. The Ecovative product range includes foams and rigid products included in the composition of protective packaging, furniture and insulation. Also composed of chitin (the 2 biopolymer found in crab shells!), mycelium is naturally water- and fire-resistant and thermally stable. Such properties make Ecovative’s technology a credible alternative to traditional foams and other synthetic materials.

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