Tag: Africa

Sustainable hot melt adhesives pave the way for textile reworking and recycling.

Bedford, Mass., July 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — When more than 92 million tons of textile waste are landfilled annually, new solutions are needed to enable fabric reworking in manufacturing and recycling on a mass scale. Conagen, the biotechnology innovator, announced the development of a groundbreaking debondable textile adhesive made from high-performance materials sourced from sustainable and natural biomolecules.

Conagen’s debondable adhesive offers a major application in the realm of reworkability during clothing production. Traditionally, when mistakes occur during manufacturing, it can lead to material wastage and additional production costs.

The reworkability aspect of Conagen’s adhesive presents a game-changing solution for the clothing industry. It allows for quick and efficient correction of errors without the need to discard and waste valuable materials. Adjustments can be made by simply debonding the adhesive and the fabric components can be seamlessly reworked, resulting in improved production efficiency, reduced material waste, and significant cost savings for manufacturers.

Moreover, debonding textile fabric plays a vital role in textile recycling by enabling efficient material separation, preserving material quality, expanding recycling opportunities, and advancing the goals of a circular economy.

Traditional adhesives used in garment manufacturing often create a permanent bond, making it challenging to separate fabric components during recycling. Conagen’s debondable adhesive not only drives sustainability through fabric recycling but also offers a practical and economical solution for optimizing production processes in the clothing industry. The ability to debond and rework materials bring newfound flexibility and efficiency, benefiting manufacturers and the environment.
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“Conagen’s pioneering adhesive has unlocked new possibilities and opportunities. This groundbreaking development enables efficient material separation during reworking and recycling processes and preserves the integrity of textile fibers, ensuring their quality for future utilization,” stated Sara Johnson, senior materials scientist. “With the introduction of Conagen’s adhesive, we are taking a significant stride towards achieving a more sustainable and environmentally responsible textile industry.”

Having previously created debondable adhesives for other sectors, such as appliances, smartphones, cars, and more, Conagen identified the significant benefits such an adhesive could bring to the textile and clothing industry and tailored a new product specifically to its needs.

Adhesives and tapes are commonly used today in garment manufacturing, either alone or in combination with stitching. This is particularly evident in the manufacturing of women’s underwear, where up to six layers of material are often glued together to achieve the desired fit and comfort. It is essential to bring attention to these modern manufacturing methods as they reflect the evolution of textile production.

Conagen’s new adhesive offering provides strength comparable to existing fabric adhesives but with the added feature of controlled debondability at end-of-life. Inspired by self-healing materials, Conagen utilizes sustainable and natural ingredients to create high-strength debondable hot melt adhesives. Unlike traditional offerings, this new adhesive is designed with reversibility, exhibiting the strength of conventionally cured adhesives, with the added benefit of transitioning to a flowable material after heating.

Conagen’s high-strength debondable textile adhesive can be used for garments, but also extends to accessories and other soft goods applications. Furthermore, the technology is compatible with both natural and synthetic fibers and materials.

To develop sustainable debondable textile adhesives, Conagen leverages its precision fermentation technology, independent of plant source materials, to create more efficient and sustainable bio-based ingredients compared to chemically-synthesized versions.

“Conagen’s fermentation technology is forging a path towards a more sustainable future, where the utilization of sustainable biocompounds and biomaterials takes center stage in propelling high-performance solutions that prioritize environmental consciousness,” said J. McNamara, vice president of chemical applications.

The seam tapes market stood at $128 million in 2020. It was projected to exhibit a CAGR of 6.9% between 2020 and 2025, making Conagen’s adhesive formulation lucrative for a supplier to distribute to clothing manufacturers.

Debondable adhesives have the potential to significantly impact the market by offering a more sustainable and efficient solution for fabric bonding. The ability to easily debond materials could lead to increased adoption of adhesive-based manufacturing techniques and open up new opportunities for textile reworking and recycling, thereby potentially expanding the market for debondable adhesive products.

Conagen’s hallmark in biotech specialty and industrial space lies in discovering applications from the platform of natural biocompounds and biomaterials, ushering in a new era of high-performing and sustainable materials.

“By harnessing the power of fermentation, Conagen is leading the charge in promoting greener alternatives and revolutionizing industries with its commitment to sustainability and innovation,” said McNamara.

Conagen’s commitment to green chemicals and sustainability has been greatly reinforced by its strategic partnership with Sumitomo Chemical. The collaboration represents a major step forward in their shared vision of developing biosolutions for a more sustainable future.

About Conagen

Conagen is a product-focused, synthetic biology R&D company with large-scale manufacturing capabilities. Our scientists and engineers use the latest synthetic biology tools to develop high-quality, sustainable, nature-based products by precision fermentation and enzymatic bioconversion. We focus on the bioproduction of high-value ingredients for food, nutrition, flavors and fragrances, pharmaceutical, and renewable materials industries. www.conagen.com

Attachments

• Adhesives and tapes are commonly used today in garment manufacturing, either alone or in combination with stitching. 
• Conagen’s high-strength debondable textile adhesive extends to accessories and other soft goods applications.

Ana Capretz, Head of Public Relations and Communications
Conagen
+1-781-271-1588
ana.capretz@conagen.com

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 8872187

Bridge Nigeria pupil in class

NAIROBI, Kenya, July 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bridge International Academies is drawing attention to the urgency of educating African girls this World Population Day (11th July) – the first time Sub-Saharan Africa will have the largest population of children on the planet.

The schools network, which includes Bridge Kenya, Bridge Nigeria and Bridge Uganda, supports children and parents in underserved communities by providing an excellent education.

This World Population Day focuses on the theme of ‘gender equality and women’s empowerment as a key factor in reducing poverty.’

Reuben Wambugu, Bridge Group Managing Director, said, “By 2050 Africa and Asia will be home to 85% of the world’s young people, with the larger proportion in Africa. Currently, only 10% of children in sub-Saharan Africa are able to read a simple sentence by the age of 10. If these young people aren’t provided with an adequate education, there will be a global shortage of scientists, doctors and engineers. This could lead to a range of possible global catastrophes. Educating women and girls has proved particularly effective in reducing poverty on a local level in the short term. And with the children of educated women shown to be healthier and better educated, this leads to faster and sustained poverty reduction through generations.

He continued, “While Bridge has seen fantastic improvements in learning outcomes for all those attending our schools, it is particularly heartening that Bridge’s methodology has succeeded in achieving gender parity in the classroom. A new study by Nobel Prize winning economist Professor Michael Kremer in our Bridge Kenya schools confirms this, finding girls make the same leaps in learning as boys.”

Speaking on the success of Bridge’s methods, Bridge Nigeria Managing Director Foyinsola Akinjayeju said, “Bridge’s model focuses on arming teachers with scientifically proven techniques to elevate the learning of girls. Through approaches, such as gender sensitive instruction in lesson and textbook materials, expecting equal participation through ‘cold calling’ of boys and girls in the classroom and the use of female school leaders as role models, girls are empowered to succeed. By pushing this approach and the importance of women’s empowerment, Bridge Nigeria alone has provided a life-changing education to tens of thousands of girls in underserved communities, helping them complete primary school, do well in secondary school and open up opportunities offering prosperity and success.”

To learn more about the Bridge methodology – visit their website here.

You can reach out to Bridge International Academies at info@bridgeinternationalacademies.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/db9775c7-c35b-483b-b919-d894909f989d

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 1000829295

The Apollo4 Lite and Apollo4 Blue Lite System-on-Chips (SoCs) Help Enhance Devices’ Functionalities and Battery Life to Accelerate the Adoption of Remote Monitoring

News Highlights:

• The new Apollo4 Lite and Blue Lite SoCs offer feature-rich capability, optimized memory, powerful graphics performance, and secureSPOT^® for robust security in a lightweight solution
• Ideal for digital health applications, such as digital stethoscopes, patient monitoring, and continuous glucose and blood pressure monitoring
• The Apollo4 Blue Lite offers secure Bluetooth^® Low Energy connectivity for communication to handheld devices, host equipment, and the Cloud

AUSTIN, Texas, July 10, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ambiq^®, a technology leader in ultra-low power semiconductor products and solutions, introduces the Apollo4 Lite and Apollo4 Blue Lite SoC to its expanding portfolio of SoCs for IoT endpoint devices, especially the remote monitoring products of the healthcare sector. This announcement follows Ambiq’s release of its Heart Kit, an optimized open-source AI model utilizing multi-head neural networks (MH-NNs) to enable a variety of real-time heart-monitoring applications.

The Apollo4 Lite and Blue Lite product line is the latest generation system processor solutions built upon Ambiq’s proprietary Subthreshold Power-Optimized Technology (SPOT^®) platform, enabling new features while reducing devices’ overall system power consumption to extend their battery life. Both SoCs are embedded with an ultra-low power Cortex-M4 core that can operate at up to 192 MHz with turboSPOT, an audio subsystem, GPU, and ample MRAM and SRAM. They are also conveniently pin-compatible with Ambiq’s Apollo4 Plus and Blue Plus¹, providing developers with optimum flexibility for innovation.

“Today’s patients are more empowered to monitor and advocate for their own health, and healthcare providers require more data analytics to prescribe holistic treatment,” said David Priscak, VP of Technical Solutions at Ambiq. “With bold graphics and long battery life, state-of-the-art health tracking is now more affordable and accessible thanks to these new additions to our Apollo4 SoC family.”

Apollo4 Lite / Blue Lite Chart

“The global remote patient market in terms of revenue was estimated to be worth $53.6 billion in 2022 and is poised to reach $175.2 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 26.7% from 2022 to 2027,” said Ms. Anu Dhiman – Lead Healthcare Analyst – MarketsandMarkets Research Pvt. Ltd. “The predominant factors influencing the growth of the market include the benefits of remote patient monitoring to reduce the burden on medical resources, the monitoring benefits of telehealth and remote patient monitoring services, advancements in telecommunications, as increasing geriatric population, and the growing need to expand healthcare access.”

The Apollo4 Lite and the Apollo4 Blue Lite are designed for extended battery life, advanced security, and powerful graphics in small form factors, which are critical for the continued adoption of these devices. Both are now in mass production, targeting digital health products, smartwatches, fitness bands, animal trackers, voice-activated remotes, industrial maintenance, and smart home IoT devices. For more product information, visit www.ambiq.com/apollo4-lite and www.ambiq.com/apollo4-blue-lite.

¹ – Apollo4 Lite is pin-compatible with Apollo4 Plus (AMAP42KP-KBR); Apollo4 Blue Lite is pin-compatible with Apollo4 Blue Plus (AMA4B2KP-KXR.)

About Ambiq

Ambiq’s mission is to develop the lowest-power semiconductor solutions to enable intelligent devices everywhere by developing the lowest-power semiconductor solutions to drive a more energy-efficient, sustainable, and data-driven world. Ambiq has helped leading manufacturers worldwide develop products that last weeks on a single charge (rather than days) while delivering a maximum feature set in compact industrial designs. Ambiq’s goal is to take Artificial Intelligence (AI) where it has never gone before in mobile and portable devices, using Ambiq’s advanced ultra-low power system on chip (SoC) solutions. Ambiq has shipped more than 200 million units as of March 2023. For more information, visit www.ambiq.com.

Contact

Charlene Wan
VP of Branding, Marketing, and Investor Relations
cwan@ambiq.com
+1.512.879.2850

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/620a2f10-acfe-4d54-b9c3-0983c58c06f6

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fd179ebf-2f60-4195-8fca-b88c7b7a852c

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 8870834