The market
In 1987, the value of sales of industrial products and services and consumption using chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) reached $ 135 billion worldwide. The CFCs are non -toxic, non -corrosive and ininflammable, which gives the impression of being a safe group of chemicals containing chlorine, fluorine, carbon and sometimes bromine. The chemical stability of CFCs considered as an advantage has involuntary consequences. Chlorine atoms released impoverish the ozone layer of the stratosphere. This is why aerosols, the suspensions of fine solid or liquid particles in a gas packed under pressure with a propellant gas for release in the form of particle spraying has avoided CFC for decades. With the exception of a few medical applications, the industry has agreed to stop using CFCs. This opened the market to innovation and a portfolio of substitution propeller chemicals, ranging from hydrocarbons (propane, butane), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), dimethyl ether (DME), compressed propellants (carbon, carbon, carbon, carbon Air, nitrogen and nitrous oxide) arrived on the market. Last year, around 15 billion propellant gas containers were sold worldwide, Europe being at the top of the market with a production of +5 billion units. Steel aerosols represent 3.6 billion units. If everything was recycled empty, it would produce enough steel for more than 160,000 cars. Propular gases represent a technological platform which covers a wide variety of products: inhalers for asthma, cleaning products, insectures, deodorants, food products, disinfectants, paintings, extinguishers, razing creams, car maintenance products, Aviation and microelectronics. Personal care products consume most propellant gases, especially lacquers and mosses. However, food products, especially whipped cream, record a constant increase. On the other hand, the use of propellants gas in paintings and finishes is decreasing. Revenues generated by consumption aerosol products in the United States at wholesale prices reach around $ 15 billion and nearly $ 40 billion worldwide.
Innovation
The search for non -toxic green propellants continues. The latest innovations include the mixture of silicone oil with propane gas, but the transition to adaptations and mixtures of hydrocarbons poses a challenge: flammability. The best solution seems to be the use of compressed air. The range of air applications as propergol has only been extended to consumer products. The replacement of CFCs used for medical applications, for which none of the existing substitutes has managed to match its performance, is a major challenge that remains largely unresolved. However, since the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioned CFC inhalers for the treatment of asthma and pulmonary diseases withdrawn from the market, the race for radical innovations is open. Andy McIntosh, professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds (United Kingdom), examined the spraying mechanism of the bomber. While it is only 2 centimeters long, the beetle defends itself against ants and spiders with a cocktail of steam and toxins which it can spit up to 20 centimeters away. Professor McIntosh was inspired by a film in the idle produced by the entomologist Tom Eisner of Cornell University showing how the beetle expelled the fluid with a series of rapid pulses, increasing pressure, then ejection, causing A pressure drop which allows more fluid to enter by depression, then to go up the pressure another time. The dendrocone does 500 times per second, which no mechanical engineer was able to do. However, the physiology of the insect inspired a team of researchers to combine lightning heating and evaporation techniques to propel liquids from a small room up to 4 meters away. Innovation represents a fundamental change compared to any solution on the market: propeller gases are replaced by "no gas". This is a particular category of innovations described in the blue economy as "substituting something with nothing", as a means of bringing our production and consumption system to much higher levels of sustainability.
The first cash flow
The replacement of a gas (a chemical) with a heating and evaporation technique (physical) offers unique advantages to the supplier of a system which has been compared to a pressure cooker with valves. The research results and the prototype have led to a new misting technology which has been patented and which is about to be marketed under the µmist ™ brand. This innovation has the potential to become the next generation of nebulizing systems with applications in fire extinguishers, fuel injection for combustion engines, needle injections for vaccines and inhalers for asthmatic patients. It is a technological platform that could penetrate all the industries which formerly depended on CFCs. However, the first entry point of this technology may well be medical. The fine misting of medicine in the lungs of patients with respiratory diseases without the use of no chemicals represents a major asset.
The opportunity
Lars-United Larsson, a Swedish entrepreneur with an extensive experience in the marketing of innovative products, has acquired global rights to marketing the new misting technology from the University of Leeds. His investment vehicle Biomimetics 3000 devotes its strength to innovations inspired by nature by obtaining financial, technical, legal and management support for innovations at an early stage, quickly transforming invention into commercial technology by combining several disciplines and Intervene good industrial partners, thus accelerating the marketing of the product. While the substitution of CFCs has motivated many people to look for substitutes, no one has really ventured into a technological option that offers such a wide variety of opportunities and a huge platform for entrepreneurs. The fact that a market of +100 billion dollars for the propellant gas industry and the consumer market is faced with a fundamental change in basic skills, implies that many companies pursuing basic activities are likely to lose Market shares with very enterprising business that adopt these material solutions. It also represents a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to dismiss technology and develop their creative approach around this revolutionary technology in more than 50 sectors of the economy.
