The molding system exposed to concentrated sunlight – credit Light ManufacturingA startup has found a way to create high-quality plastic products like water tanks, boat frames, and more, all using the power of the sun, and has created a portable factory that can be transported anywhere in the world via shipping containers.
The speed and flexibility of the factory system make it an incredible asset for firms or governments operating in numerous environments and situations from disaster relief to rural development.
Called Light Manufacturing, the technology is known as Solar Rotational Molding (SRM), and in layman's terms involves putting raw plastic into a mold and blasting it with a beam of sunlight concentrated via a bank of 30 special mirrors called heliostats that automatically adjust to keep shining on the mold as the sun moves across the sky.
Karl von Kries, founder of Light Manufacturing and inventor of SRM, used to work for a Massachusettes-based company that used rotational molding for flight cases, and started on his entrepreneurial journey after seeing the company's energy bills, and watching An Inconvenient Truth.
“Back then I found it strange that we were paying for a lot of natural gas, but in the summer months, the roof of the factory was well over 130 degrees Fahrenheit,” he told GNN. “I wondered if there was some way to capture that solar heat.”
“I assumed that this idea had been tried before, and was found impractical. But I couldn't find anything in the literature about solar rotational molding, so I set up a new company to ‘prove the idea would NOT work' so I could get on with my career.”
Then a strange thing happened, solar molding “failed to fail.”
“We made some pretty low-quality parts at first, but we kept iterating, and by 2014 we were molding high-quality plastic parts and had landed several critical patents,” said Von Kries, who sees one of the best ways to utilize SRM technology as furnishing rural areas in poor countries with critical plumbing equipment like pipes and rainwater catch tanks.
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“Currently our biggest system, the SRM4, can mold tanks up to 2,000 gallons / 7,500 liters. Each system can mold thousands of tanks a year… and of course, smaller tanks can be molded as well.”
The mold system is fitted on a rotational axis inside a shipping container, along with all control panels and electrical parts. No foundation or base is needed apart from one single acre of flat, cleared ground.
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“All costs accounted for, our systems are one-tenth the cost of deploying a traditional molding system in a factory building,” Von Kires says.
With just a two-person crew, operating costs are very low, while finished product cost is 20-30% less than products made with traditional means because the system doesn't require natural gas for heating.
Currently, Von Kries and Light Manufacturing have a system deployed already in Hawaii.
WATCH the system in action…
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