While the micro turbojet engine may be small – weighing only eight pounds – it remains a startling chunk of Inconel. The engine is a single, complete assembly, including all rotating and stationary components.
The turbojet was designed in Creo CAD software, using Inconel as the material and an EOS 3D metal printer as the production machine. “The engine is about the size of a basketball. It would probably be used for drones,” Steve Dertien, chief technology officer at PTC, said during a presentation.
The jet engine project was the brainchild of Ronen Ben Horin, a VP of technology at PTC and a senior research fellow at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology – and Beni Cukurel, an associate professor of aerospace at Technion. The two took their scientific research in jet propulsion and their engineering expertise and designed the engine for additive manufacturing.
When designing the engine, the researchers focused on:
A lightweight design: That required sophisticated lattice modeling and generative design for material and weight reduction while maintaining the appropriate strength and performance that could match designs with more material and heavier weight.
Self-supporting geometries for 3D Printing: That means the software had to optimize designs for printability. Creo needed to create self-supported formula-driven lattices that can be paired with printability checks and modifiers to adjust the design for printing efficiency.
3D printing equipment interoperability: Creo software is compatible with most 3D printing equipment for printing and post-processing. Creo provides a variety of formats, including 3MF, for sending 3D models to the market’s various printer technologies, while also allowing users to create associative models for machining operations. This micro-jet engine was printed with an EOS printer.
In a statement, Cukurel acknowledged that designing the engine with Horin was the culmination of many years of research that included staying on top of advancements in the supporting technology of 3D printing and design software. He noted that the design offers a viable way of producing micro turbojet engines.
While this machine is not the first 3D-printed jet engine — Monash University in Australia claimed that title in 2015, and GE claimed it in 2020 – Cukurel and Horin can probably claim bragging rights for doing it as one piece.
Israel’s ophthalmologists are getting a boost from innovators developing solutions for eye diseases and eye health.
“I think we can see how this industry has matured in Israel, both on the management side, and in the sense of understanding what to develop, and how to develop it,” says Dr. Barak Azmon, a pioneering entrepreneur in the country’s ophthalmology industry.
Azmon is chair of the ophthalmology session at next week’s annual Biomed Conference in Tel Aviv, which showcases the latest developments in healthcare, and will be exhibiting some of these new ocular technologies.
Israel’s ophthalmologists are getting a boost from innovators developing solutions for eye diseases and eye health. (Courtesy Maksim Goncharenok/ Pexels)
“In Israel, there are around 70 startups in the ophthalmologic space. It’s probably more than in the Silicon Valley or any other region alone,” says Azmon.
“As we will show in this conference, we have a unique year where nine companies in the ophthalmology space have already launched new products or are expected to do so by the end of the year.”
NoCamels takes a look at some of the most innovative solutions in the field of eye health in Israel:
Orasis: Eyedrops For Better Vision
Many people over the age of 45 who have always had 20/20 vision find themselves suddenly needing reading glasses as their eyes age – a chronic inconvenience whose long-term solution is an invasive medical procedure.
But now new eyedrops developed by Orasis will be able to correct farsightedness (presbyopia) – albeit for a few hours.
Orasis’ eye drops will enable people with farsightedness to see clearly without reading glasses for several hours at a time. (Courtesy Yaroslav Shuraev / Pexels)
“We aspire to make near vision clear again for people with presbyopia by empowering them with an unparalleled solution, an eye drop that will provide them with comfort and control of their near vision,” said Elad Kedar, CEO of Orasis.
The eyedrop improves patients’ vision by constricting the pupil, resulting in a “pinhole effect” and increasing their depth of field and ability to focus on nearby objects.
Presbyopia is a result of the natural aging process, and there are almost two billion people living with it globally. They experience blurred vision when performing daily tasks like reading a book, a restaurant menu or messages on a smartphone.
Existing treatment options for farsightedness include invasive treatments like LASIK eye surgery, pictured. (Courtesy Senior Airman Brian Ferguson/ Wikimedia Commons)
It cannot be prevented or reversed, and it continues to progress gradually. All existing treatment options are either inconvenient, like reading glasses and contact lenses, or invasive, like refractive surgery that changes the shape of your cornea and lens implants, which replace the lens in each eye with a synthetic one.
Orasis’ eye drops will be sold in the US by the end of the year.
CorNeat Vision: Synthetic Sight
Over two million people lose their vision every year due to a group of eye diseases known as corneal blindness.
The only effective treatment available is a cornea transplant – the clear, front part of the eye that absorbs light, which is later translated by the retina into the images that we see.
Problem is, there’s a shortage of cornea donors worldwide. In China, for example, there are five million patients with corneal blindness, but only 5,000 possible transplants a year.
An animation showing CorNeat Vision’s synthetic lenses. (Courtesy)
Furthermore, artificial corneas are not effective for more than a few months as the immune system sees them as something foreign that needs to be dissolved or expelled.
But startup CorNeat Vision says it has developed a synthetic cornea that can fully rehabilitate corneal blind patients and integrate into their eye tissue.
The “skirt”, or rim of the lens, is made of a patented plastic that stimulates the cells to accept it and incorporate it into the eye tissue.
“There’s no other material that seamlessly embeds itself with live human tissue for life,” says Almog Aley-Raz, CEO.
“When you implant anything, it triggers a foreign body response, and our immune system will work to degrade and eventually absorb it or, in case it is non-degradable, it will encapsulate it with a granuloma (a cluster of white blood cells and other tissue), isolating it from the body.”
The CorNeat KPro. Courtesy
It uses the electrospinning technique – an existing method of creating tiny polymers and metals – to fabricate a rim for an artificial lens, which until now has been seen as an engineering challenge.
The CorNeat KPro is currently undergoing clinical trials, and is expected to be approved for marketing late in 2024.
NovaSight: New Way of Testing
We are all familiar with the ubiquitous eye chart to test our vision, and while it may be effective for adults and adolescents, that isn’t the case for children.
They often don’t cooperate or are simply incapable of taking the test because they’re too young.
NovaSight has developed an eye exam that tracks the position and gaze of the eye to assess their vision.
All the patient needs to do is watch a video on a tablet that is mounted with an inconspicuous eye tracker called the EyeSwift.
Children are often incapable of taking a traditional eye exam because they’re too young. (Courtesy National Library of Medicine – History of Medicine / Wikimedia Commons)
The video shows dots that are constantly moving across the screen, and its resolution gradually reduces over time, becoming more and more foggy.
The company’s algorithms then determine the patient’s level of eyesight once their eyes can no longer follow the target. Its creators say it is simple, accurate and more accessible for both children and adults than traditional eye exams.
“We see when the kid or the adult is not able to track this moving target anymore, just by looking at their eyes,” says Ran Yam, CEO of NovaSight. “We know exactly what their threshold vision is without asking them anything, and without them saying anything.”
Until now, eye tracking has mostly been used for gaming or in expensive medical devices such as those used for people living with ALS (an incurable disease of the nervous system) and not in eye care.
NovaSight will be releasing its treatment for lazy eye, which is also powered by the EyeSwift, later this year. (Courtesy)
“The technology became more affordable over time, so we took that opportunity in order to integrate it into medical devices for vision care,” Yam explains.
The EyeSwift also offers a variety of vision tests, including for color blindness, reading performance, stereoacuity (a person’s ability to detect differences in distance) and more. The same technology also powers the company’s treatment for lazy eye.
NovaSight is this month launching a commercial pilot with Opticana, one of Israel’s leading optical chains.
Notal Vision: Speedy Home Diagnosis
Worsening eyesight is an unfortunate part of aging. For 200 million people worldwide, it comes in the form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a treatable but recurring disease where the central part of a person’s vision becomes blurred or distorted over a period of days or weeks.
If the condition worsens, the person may struggle to see anything in the center of their field of vision, and a lack of regular oversight by a physician could mean that their eyesight has irreparably deteriorated.
A simulation that shows what a grocery store aisle looks like to someone with age-related macular degeneration. (Courtesy National Eye Institute, NIH / Wikimedia Commons)
Notal Vision provides these patients with a daily home monitoring device using artificial intelligence that within three minutes identifies the onset or reactivation of AMD, thereby offering better, faster and more personalized care.
“The patient puts their head into a viewer where they watch stimuli, and use a computer mouse to click on a location where they spot distortions,” explains Dr. Kester Nahen, CEO of Notal Vision.
“After our AI algorithm analyzes the data, their physician is notified through our monitoring center that provides the service, and a decision can be made to bring the patient into the office for further imaging.”
A patient using the HomeOCT device, which will be available in the US later this year. (Courtesy)
Notal Vision says a study showed that 81 percent of patients whose AMD progressed and were using their ForeseeHome device maintained 20/40 (or better) vision, compared to only 32 percent of patients whose diagnosis was at a routine eye exam or a medical consultation triggered by symptoms.
The company’s new device, the Home OCT system, will help physicians monitor the symptoms and progression of patients with wet AMD, a more serious form of the disease, and offer personalized treatment. It is expected to be in use in the United States by the end of the year.
Aleph Farms, which a Technion professor co-founded, continues to break more records in this latest development
The first company to grow steaks directly from the cells of cows has now received the first halachic ruling regarding the kosher status of cultivated meat.
Chief Rabbi of Israel, David Lau, made the announcement yesterday (Wednesday, January 18th), following an examination of the production methods in the company’s laboratory and speaking with experts in the field.
Rabbi Lau noted, however, that if it is marketed as meat or is “similar to meat in taste and smell”, it should not be mixed or consumed with dairy products.
Co-founded by Technion Professor, Shulamit Levenberg, from the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and backed by Leonardo DiCaprio, Aleph Farms has – to date – raised $120 million in funding. It is awaiting marketing approval for its first product – Minute Steak – before it enters the market for the first time.
Other notable animal-free produce startups linked to the Technion include SavorEat, a company that produces 3D-printed burger patties via a robot chef using ingredient cartridges, SuperMeat, which takes cell cultures from chickens and Imagindairy, which develops real milk in the lab without harming animals.
Aleph Farms hopes to launch its Minute Steak in Israel this year, followed by other countries around the world next year.
Meanwhile, Professor Levenberg is working on a host of other exciting innovations, including genetically engineering muscle tissue to cure type-2 diabetes and treating spinal cord injury patients with exosome therapy, which contains three times the amount of growth factors of stem cells, is less invasive and doesn’t rely on human donors.
Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon spent time at the Israel Institute of Technology on an official visit to Israel
PHOTO: Professor Hossam Hayek showing Lord Ahmed his invention
The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology was delighted to welcome the Minister of State for the Middle East to its campus this week.
Lord Tariq Ahmad – a British Muslim politician – was impressed with the proportion of Arab students on campus. 30% of this years new students are from the Arab Community and benefit from the Technion Empowerment Programme which gives them individual attention, supervision and monitoring, particularly in their learning of Hebrew which is one of the biggest challenges for Arab students.
This educational model has since been copied by other institutions throughout Israel, enabling a growth in Arab university students in Israel of 78% over seven years, according to research by Israel’s Council for Higher Education.
Lord Ahmad – along with representatives from the British Embassy and the British Council – were welcomed to the campus by the President of the Technion, Uri Sivan, along with several members of the senior team. They learned that 5,000 out of 20,000 students live on campus – the highest number in Israel.
He asked about all the impressive high-tech companies he had driven past on his way to the campus, such as Google and Intel, and learned that they have all come to Haifa because of the Technion and to recruit graduates from the University.
He was also interested to learn that nearly 70% of the founders and CEOs of Israeli start-up companies are Technion graduates and that there are two campuses abroad – one in China and one in New York.
Taking to Twitter following his visit, he wrote: “Fantastic to visit Technion – Israel Institute of Technology University and learn more about the vibrant Israeli innovation scene. I met Professor Uri Sivan and with Professor Hossam Hayek, a BIRAX recipient who created the groundbreaking ‘Alzheimer’s breath test’.”
This invention. which is also used to detect cancer in a matter of seconds was shown to King Charles when he last visited Israel a few years ago. He said that this is a remarkable technological development and an ingenious invention.
Last month the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology synthetic biology team took off for theInternational Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, held in Paris. The students in the group were engineering special bacteria that will produce an industrial substance that deters hair loss, and which can be added to regular shampoos and other haircare products.
Illustrative: A chemotherapy patient lying in a hospital bed. (iStock via Getty Images)
This year, the iGEM team from the Technion included 12 students from across the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, and the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. The team recently received a special Impact grant given to only a small number of the teams participating in the global competition based on their projected benefits to humanity.
Every year, the team chooses an innovative project in the field of synthetic biology, and this year, it involves substances that inhibit hair loss caused by chemotherapy. One of the most common cancer treatments, chemotherapy causes damage to healthy, living tissues and oftentimes hair loss, among other severe side effects.
The Technion team set to compete in iGEM worked on proving the feasibility of lab production of Decursin, a hair loss deterrent, and its possible incorporation into preparations including shampoo, cream, and more. Decursin is a major component of Angelica gigas Nakai (AGN) root extract. It has many beneficial properties including the abilities to suppress inflammation, repress cancer, and prevent apoptosis – or programmed cell death, which includes hair cells.
Today, the molecule is produced from a rare seasonal flower grown in Korea in an expensive and inefficient process. The student team is engineering bacteria that will produce Decursin industrially.
The prestigious iGEM competition was founded in 2004 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to give students, mainly undergraduates, a chance to experience scientific and applied research in the world of synthetic biology. Since its inception, the competition has been held in Boston. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was held online for the past two years.
This year, more than 300 teams from around the world will participate in the competition, including three Israeli teams – one from the Technion, one from Tel Aviv University, and one from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The first Israeli iGEM team was established at the Technion in 2012 under the guidance of Professor Roee Amit, a faculty member in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. He guides the Technion team to this day.
Over the years, teams from the Technion have won multiple gold medals in the competition. But according to Prof. Amit, “Beyond participation and winning, it is important to understand that some of the developments by the Technion teams have already been turned into applied and commercial tracks and have a real impact in the world. One of the most prominent examples is Koracell, which was founded on the basis of the technology developed by our students in preparation for a competition iGEM in 2019. The group developed an innovative technology for the production of honey without bees using a genetically engineered bacterium. This technology allows the honey’s texture and taste to be precisely designed, and it is also a platform for simulating other natural metabolic processes.”
Technion Is Europe’s top university in the field of artificial at intelligence for the second year in a row calling to an international ranking of computer science institutions globally
The university also placed 16th in the world in the field of AI and 10th in the world in the subfield of learning systems.
The Technion continues to establish its position as the leading research institution in Israel and Europe in the core areas of artificial intelligence, thanks to the unique work environment that exists in this field at the Technion,” said Shie Mannor, a co-director of Tech.AI − Technion Artificial Intelligence Hub.
Around 150 Technion researchers are involved in Tech.AI, applying advanced AI practices to a variety of fields including data science, medical research, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, architecture and biology
Solidifying the Technion‘s position as a pioneer and world leader in the field of AI and spreading the knowledge acquired in this process to the commercial world in all its aspects are very important national tasks,” said fellow Tech.Al Co-Director Assaf Schuster.
According to Shai Shen-Orr, who leads the biomed activity and AI solutions for the health sector within Tech.AI, the centre has used its advancements in the field of AI to create partnerships with companies such as Pfizer and IBM and leading medical institutions including the Rambam Health Care Campus in Israel and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre.
The Technion recently announced that it has established a new institute that will focus on applying AI research to create solutions in the field of human health and medicine.
And why H2Pro, set up by Technion Professors is the Israeli startup we all need to know about!
We are living through an exciting part of the global journey to reducing carbon emissions, thanks to a transition to clean energy that’s gaining serious momentum.
Between the ongoing economic recovery from Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine – highlighting the need for the Western world to become energy independent – investments in the global renewable energy market are expected to increase significantly.
By 2040, around 10% of the world’s primary energy demand could be replaced by hydrogen, while the global hydrogen market is expected to more than double by 2050.
Israel, as one example, is currently aiming for 30% of its energy to be renewable by 2030 – a considerable increase on the 2020 total of 7%.
But its success relies on many factors, such as creating more storage, reducing the reliance on fossil fuels and making energy systems more flexible and resilient.
As the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen is a portable, scalable fuel that can serve as a lifeline to sectors that are difficult and costly to electrify, such as long-haul trucking, maritime shipping and air travel.
As a zero-carbon duel, it is also an environmentally-friendly option for high-heat industrial processes, such as steel and cement.
The one to watch out for
While others are developing in the market, H2Pro is at the forefront of making these targets a reality, thanks to its revolutionary method for efficiently splitting water into its two components of hydrogen and oxygen.
Using electricity, the elements are generated separately, unlike conventional electrolysis, enabling a 95% system efficiency.
Founded by Professors Gideon Grader and Avner Rothschild and Drs. Hen Dotan and Avigail Landman of the Grand Technion Energy Programme in 2019, the company, which counts Bill Gates as an investor, has laid the cornerstone of its first production facility, which, when completed, will produce affordable green renewable energy at scale.
The increased demand for sustainable energy sources prompted research groups to focus on battery research in order to store large-scale grid energy in a manageable and reliable manner. In addition, the rising demand of the electric vehicle industry, which mainly relies on current Li-ion battery technology, is expected to strain the current lithium production and divert it from more widespread use as portable consumer electronics. Currently, no technology has proven to be competitive enough to displace Li-ion Batteries.
Now, a team of researchers from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has developed a proof-of-concept for a novel rechargeable silicon (Si) battery, as well as its design and architecture that enables Si to be reversibly discharged and charged.
The research was led by Professor Yair Ein-Eli of the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering. The team proved via systematic experimental works of the graduate student Alon Epstein and theoretical studies of Dr. Igor Baskin that silicon is dissolved during the battery discharge process, and elemental silicon is deposited upon charging. Several discharge-charge cycles were achieved, utilizing heavy doped n-type Si wafer anodes and specially designed hybrid-based ionic liquid electrolytes, tailored with halides (Bromine and Iodine), functioning as conversion cathodes.
This breakthrough could pave the way towards the enrichment of the battery technologies available in the energy storage market, with the technology potentially easing stress on the ever-growing market and serving the increasing demand for rechargeable batteries.
Silicon, as the second most abundant element on earth’s crust, was left relatively unexplored despite a high energy density of 8.4 kWh kg-1 on par with metallic Li 11.2 kWh kg-1. Silicon possesses stable surface passivation and low conductivity (dependent on the doping levels). Until now, no established rechargeable cell chemistry comprising elemental Si as an active anode has been reported outside LIB alloying anode.
In the past decade, several publications reported the incorporation of active silicon anodes in primary, non-rechargeable air-battery designs. Thus despite its high abundance and ease of production, the possibility of using Si as an active multivalent rechargeable anode was never explored until the team’s recent breakthrough.
A team of researchers from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology has developed a proof-of-concept for a novel rechargeable silicon (Si) battery, as well as its design and architecture that enables Si to be reversibly discharged and charged.
Led by Professor Yair Ein-Eli of the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, the team proved via systematic experimental works of the graduate student, Alon Epstein and theoretical studies of Dr. Igor Baskin, that Si is dissolved during the battery discharge process, and upon charging, elemental Si is deposited. Several discharge-charge cycles were achieved, utilizing heavy doped n-type Si wafer anodes and specially designed hybrid based ionic liquid electrolytes, tailored with halides (Bromine and Iodine), functioning as conversion cathodes.
This breakthrough could pave the way towards an enrichment of the battery technologies available on the energy storage “super-market” technology, providing an ease on the ever-growing market and demand for rechargeable batteries.
Developments leading to this breakthrough
The increased demand for sustainable energy sources prompted the scientific community to focus on battery research capable of storing large scale grid energy in a manageable and reliable manner. Moreover, the rising demand of the EV industry, which mainly relies on current Li-ion batteries (LIBs) technology is expected to strain current Li production and divert it from more widespread use as portable consumer electronics. Currently, no technology has proven to be competitive enough to displace LIBs. Metals and elements capable of delivering multi-electrons during their oxidation process have been the focus of the research community for a long time due to their associated high specific energy densities.
Magnesium, calcium, aluminum and zinc received much attention as potential anode materials with varied levels of progress; yet none has managed to revolutionize the energy storage industry beyond LIBs, as all of these systems suffer from poor kinetic performance to lack of cell stability, and therefore, much is left to be explored. Silicon (Si), as the second most abundant element on earth’s crust (after oxygen) was left relatively unexplored despite a high energy density of 8.4 kWh kg-1 on par with metallic Li 11.2 kWh kg-1; Si possesses a stable surface passivation, low conductivity (dependent on the doping levels) and until now no established rechargeable cell chemistry comprising elemental Si as an active anode has been reported, outside LIB alloying anode.
In the past decade several publications (initiated originally in 2009 by Prof. Ein-Eli) reported the incorporation of active Si anodes in primary, non-rechargeable air-battery designs. Thus, despite its high abundance and ease of production, the possibility of using Si as an active multivalent rechargeable anode was never explored, until the team’s recent breakthrough.
The Formula Student competition in Europe this summer is a platform for new technological developments.
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Formula racecar team unveiled the first-ever autonomous electric vehicle in the team’s history since 2012.
They designed and built it for the Formula Student International Design Competition in Europe next month.
The Technion team placed first at the Formula Student competition in the Czech Republic in 2019, and first place in the first Formula Student Race held in Israel last year. This team also holds the title for the lightest car in the history of the European competition (132 kg).
Team leader Muans Omari, a master’s student in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, explained that the car world is shifting to electric and autonomous vehicles, and the Formula Student competitions have embraced this trend.
Nevertheless, the transition from an internal combustion engine to an electric propulsion system “took a lot of work and learning,” Omari added.
The Formula Technion team’s autonomous electric vehicle (A-EV) is no longer red and black as in past years, but blue, white and gray to symbolize electric propulsion.
The Formula Student competition is a platform for new technological developments. Each team’s performance is rated on a combination of engineering challenges plus driving skills demonstrated on the track.
The goal of the project is to enable students to acquire practical knowledge in planning as well as manufacturing vehicles.
“We are considered a good team,” Omari said. “We’re not as good as the German teams that are being supported by the largest car manufacturers and their engineers, but we already proved ourselves.”
