Moneymakers
CLEAN AND SAFE: Cashing in on the growing requirement for clean water, the Pune-based Thermax Ltd is setting up a joint venture company with Culligan Water Technologies Ltd of the US. The new venture - Thermax Culligan Water Technologies Ltd - will provide products and services for quality water in industrial, commercial and domestic sectors. Initially, the company will. market products like water cooler-cum-purifier and water purifiers for domestic and commercial establishments. Thermax has also entered into an agreement with Fuji Electric Ltd of Japan to manufacture energy-saving devices.
ONLINE FISHING: After making inroads into almost very other profession, computers are set to change the shape of aquaculture. Aqua Software, a Kerala-based company, has launched an aquaculture software called Scampi Fry. The software is designed in such a manner that even a computer-illiterate person can easily operate a hatchery. It is a menu-driven system with facilities for stock management, employee attendance, wages, billing and production planning. It will provide detailed information about daily affairs at a hatchery.
VIRAL ANTIDOTE: A new vaccine developed by the Hyderabad-based Shanta Biotech, promises a cheaper cure for jaundice and a number of chronic liver diseases caused by the deadly hepatitis-B virus. The company plans to commercialise the production of the vaccine by May and produce four million doses annually. Clinical trials of the vaccine have given positive results. According to Varaprasad Reddy, chief executive of Shanta Biotech, the three mandatory doses of the vaccine would be available at less than Rs 200 as against the imported prim of Rs 1,400-1,525.
DRY REMEDY: Kajima Corp of Japan has developed a system to process wet garbage and sludge at one/fifth the energy cost of similar systems currently in use. The new system is based on steam-recompression technology under which the waste is placed in an airtight container and heated up to WC and consequently dried. Once wet garbage is processed dry, the waste becomes lighter and is recycled as fuel. The company is planning to develop a machine that will be able to handle one metric tonne of refuse a day.
SOUND SYSTEM: Waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles win now be recycled for use in vehicle sound-absorption material by Nissan Motor Co of Japan. It plans to recycle more than 10 million PET bottles in the year 2000 and use the material in all future models. With the assistance of Mitsubishi Chemical Co, the automaker has succeeded in recycling PET resin into fibres 15 microns in diameter, for use in production of a sound-absorbing material. The company said that it takes around five PET bottles to provide enough material for sound insulation for one vehicle.
SMOKELESS FIRE: A flameless burner designed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute of Solar Energy Systems, Germany, could make significant reductions in air pollution caused by domestic heaters. The burner uses a catalyst to oxidise the mixture of air and natural gas instead of burning it with a flame. It produces only half a milligram of nitrogen oxides per kilowatt hour, which is 100-200 times less than the levels produced by conventional burners. The levels of carbon monoxide and unburned methane are almost negligible.