Workplace Safety and Health

Catastrophic residential fires and wildfires have a significant impact in terms of fatalities, injuries, loss of property, and air pollution. Flame retardants play important roles in fire protection by helping to prevent or slow the spread of fire. Currently, brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are the most abundantly used flame retardants. However, there are increasing concerns about their toxicity to humans and persistence in the environment.  To find an eco-friendly alternative to those toxic chemicals, the technology owner has developed a non-toxic flame-retardant nanocoating using bio-based and renewable raw materials such as chitosan and clay nanoplatelets. This water-based coating can potentially be applied to any flammable polymeric material, such as wood, foams and fabrics, providing effective fire protection for a wide range of applications. The technology is available for IP licencing and R&D collaboration with industry partners who are interested in adopting flame-retardant coatings in their products and applications.

Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) is widely used for blast protection and structural reinforcement of concrete elements in buildings and infrastructure. However, conventional FRP solutions have limitations due to labour-intensive applications such as on-site preparation and resin mixing, inconsistent quality, long curing time, and low productivity. The technology is a glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) roll pre-saturated with a tacky resin system that can be easily applied to structural elements like “double-sided tape”. The resin-infused GFRP can fully cure in natural light within a few hours, strengthening the structure with only a marginal increase in wall thickness. A fire-retarding version of GFRP is also available. The GFRP solution is fast and efficient with minimal on-site tools and less dependent on workmanship skills. The technology is available for IP licensing and collaboration with industrial partners who are interested in adopting the fast-curing GFRP technology in their products and applications.

As the earth gets warmer, the cooling of living and working spaces requires more energy. Governments are enacting standards for eco-friendly buildings in response to increasing concerns about rising energy use and carbon emissions. A novel “self-cooling” solution can help buildings and automobiles to cool down without heavily relying on air conditioning, leading to greater energy savings. The technology offer is a high-performance passive radiative cooling paint (PRCP) using emerging nanomaterial technology. Different from conventional paint, this cooling paint combines high solar reflectivity with high thermal emissivity. Hence, the paint can reflect incoming solar radiation and emit thermal radiation simultaneously, achieving effective cooling even under direct sunlight.  The technology owner is interested in R&D collaboration and test-bedding with commercial and residential building owners, property developers and construction companies. The technology is also available for out-licensing to paint developers and manufacturers.

The technology offer presents a wireless data transmission via ultrasound system. The technology transforms any speaker or sound system into a tool for detection, geolocation, authentication and wireless communication. The system allows wireless data transmission in constrained environments where radio waves (e.g., Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth) are not effective or not permitted, such as explosive, defense, electromagnetic-sensitive, metallic and high humidity environment.

Current methods of monitoring construction safety and productivity are tedious, costly and prone to human errors. Resulting in operations being non-compliant, dangerous and inefficient which leads to project delays, cost overruns and even reputational damage. This technology offers an enhanced safety and productivity tracking solution in the construction industry by leveraging on video analytics to detect safety hazards and high-risk scenarios as well as productivity insights. It provides actionable insights in the form of alerts, charts and reports to enable safety officers and project managers to make better-informed decisions for their operations.

Core body temperature is an important vital sign indicating the health status of a person. This technology offer is a wearable core body temperature sensor for continuous and non-invasive measurements. The miniaturized sensor is ideal for the integration into wearable devices and med-tech/health-tech devices with skin contact. Both stand-alone solution and integrated circuit (IC) level solutions are available.