Past Projects

Principal Investigator: Prof. Hu Xiao

Team Members: Liang Yen Nan, Lua Shun Kuang, Qi Huiyuan, Jacob Lim Song Kiat

Natural disasters often result in a severe scarcity of safe drinking water in affected areas. Existing technologies provide some options of chemical treatment, filtration and solar disinfection, which requires large deployment time (circa 1-4 weeks) and are usually heavy.
NTU’s patented gel technology offers a cost-effective, efficient and easily deployable solution to purify water for drinking. The specially formulated gel, designed in a compressible package, absorbs contaminated water (e.g. water sources from rivers, streams, pond water) and makes it safe for consumption when squeezed out. This process can be replicated and the gel can treat up to 2 litres of contaminated water under 15s.

Principal Investigator: Jason Lai

Team Members: Dr. Tong Chin Foong, Dr. Hu Xiaolei, Robin Tanzania, Edwin Teo

We are creating the next generation wireless charging technology. Xnergy’s first product is BEYOND, a ready-to-market pilot product to serve Autonomous and Electric Vehicles (EV) platforms. Our core technology caters to a wide spectrum of wireless electric charging applications to improve the seamless experience of adopting electric powered platforms in the mobility, industrial and consumer sectors. Our unique 2.0 technology and design architecture are both scalable and customisable to existing Electricity sources to increase productivity, lower infrastructure deployment cost and ease of use.
Xnergy co-creates and advocates usage of electric-mobility. We seek industry partners and technology collaborators to drive this Industry 4.0 mission. We are in collaborative projects to co-develop our technology into the mobile robots and EVs to bring the benefits of Xnergy’s tech into mainstream utilization.

Principal Investigator: Prof. Pooi See Lee

Team Members: Dr. Kaushik Parida, Gao Dace, Ciou Jing Hao

We have developed a product, which can harvest energy upon application of mechanical force (including simple hand tapping, stretching or human motion). The device is stretchable and self-healable, and thus can be conformably attached to human skin. The device is capable of enduring high mechanical strain and deformations. The energy generated from mechanical impact can power electronic devices like watches, mobile phones, RFID sensors, touch sensors, and bio-integrated electronics. The device can be effectively used as a power source for wearable electronics. Among the wearable market segment, the device can be used in sportswear to power sports monitoring wearable gadgets. Additionally, the device can be used in green building, smart shoes, low power consumer electronics, etc.

Principal Investigator: Assoc. Prof Tiong Lee Kong Robert

Team Members: Hou Zhaoqi, Shao Zhe, Wang longqi

Urban Dots Solution provides a one-stop environmental impact assessment package. The microclimate simulator which deploys a hybrid dynamic-statistical downscaling approach outperforms CFD-based simulation tool with much quicker simulation time (1:50) and comparable accuracy (10% – 30%). It is a one of a kind solution to evaluate urban heat island effect and building footprint, in terms of temperature, humidity (through precipitation) and wind.
It can be used by consultants in the construction industry to assess the environmental performance of individual buildings or even urban landscape. Other applications include urban greenery assessment, flood risk modelling and tree stability assessment. Currently, we are working with government agencies, such as URA, BCA and NEA to explore its full functionality and potential applications. It also covers important aspects /criteria of Green Mark issued by BCA.

Principal Investigator: Albert Sutiono

Team Members: Loh Chi Jie, Daphne Ting Wan Qing

Siege Advanced Manufacturing is a 3D printing team that enables 3D printing for mass manufacturing using automation to allow 3D printing on a large scale, providing mass customisation as a new manufacturing option to many industries, revolutionising their operations and products.
Our solution will automate the end-to-end process from the time a customer uploads a file to the collection of a product print. This removes human intervention and human error and enables prints to start accurately and automatically, reducing any down time. The patented technology can be licensed out to other 3D printing companies in the future.
We have worked with organisations such as Agilent Technologies, Clarins, DP Architects, the National Museum of Singapore, Siix-AGT, SMRT and many more, to implement 3D printing as part of their manufacturing processes.

Principal Investigator: Prof Lam Yeng Ming

Team Members: Dr Zhang LiLing, Dr Nguyen Anh Chien, Dr Goh Chin Foo

Our nano-gel (‘RetenSol’) is a unique non-toxic formulation that serves as a wetting agent and dispersed ‘water bank’ that retains water when the ground is wet and does ‘smart’ water release when conditions become drier. The cycle is repeated with rainfall or intentional watering and can be repeatable over 12 months or more. In multiple trials, adding our formulation increased plant survival and lushness under drought environment, thus watering frequency could be reduced by half to save water cost, manpower and ancillary costs.
By modulating the effects of unpredictable rainfall, RetenSol also increases planting options and mitigates negative effects of climate change. Suitable for both fresh planting and mature plants with no requirements for soil churn, it does not cause localised ponding, algae growth or root rot.

Principal Investigator: Assoc Prof. Yang Hyunsoo
Team Member: Dr. Wu Yang

This is a game changing THz spectrometer with patented technologies that can screen for both explosives and drugs. It is a portable, all fiber based “click & run” machine that has the dynamic range of the up to 100 dB, and bandwidth spectrum range from 0.1 – 8 THz. We characterize these substances ahead of time and our Spectrometer can detect these signatures for Airports, Port of Entries and other application.

Principal Investigator: Prof. Hong Ming Hui
Team Members: Jet Chun Chion, Maria Ivon Climaco

Harnessing the combination of optical and material engineering, Phaos Nanoscope is capable of providing resolution that surpasses most of the conventional optical microscopy techniques typically limited to 200nm. Object with sub-100nm feature sizes can be imaged under Phaos Nanoscope. Hence, the Phaos Nanoscope technology can potentially address this technological gap and open up new research opportunities and market for enhanced imaging of biomedical and soft material in ambient environment.

Team Member: Nicholas Oh

Enlitho is a nanotechnology start-up company from SUTD which specialises in micro- and nanoscale fabrication. Introducing Plasmonic Nanotags- a customisable and ultra-high resolution print image capable of reaching 100,000 dots-per-inch (DPI) resolution and can also be designed to incorporate overt security features. With an increasing demand of personalisation products, coupled with developments in counterfeit technology, these Nanotags serve as multi-functional prints capable of tagging, branding and providing security to precious physical items which current personalisation technology cannot achieve.

Principal Investigator: Assoc Prof. Yong Ken Tye
Team Members: Abdul Rahman, Stephanie Yap

This project utilizes a surface functionalized optical microfiber sensor with a wide choice of chelating agent compound to adhere onto the extremely sensitive sensing region, which in turn, promotes high customizability of the sensor. These include fast response time and sampling rate for near real-time snapshots of the water quality state of risk, low power demand, compact, and requires no special additional equipment or analysis time for multi-element detection.

Principal Investigator: Asst Prof. Tan Swee Ching
Team Members: Dilip Krishna, Zhang Yaoxin

Ultra DRY is the first commercial application of a novel, super-hygroscopic gel developed by SweeLabs. Among the gel’s many properties are its ability to absorb up to 4x its own mass in water and to regenerate quickly and easily. Ultra DRY out-performs established desiccants such as silica gel and calcium chloride, market valued at over USD 300 million per annum. Applications so far investigated, range from keeping scientific instruments dry to preventing “container sweat” to room dehumidification as a means of reducing air-conditioning requirements.

Principal Investigators: Assoc Prof. Karina Gin
Team members: Dr. Genevieve Vergara, Dr. Le Thai Hoang, Dr. Goh Shin Giek

Can I Swim is a platform for collecting and disseminating information on illness risks associated with microbial pathogens in recreational waters. It streamlines the risk assessment process and enables the public and authorities to make informed decisions about recreational water quality, health and safety. Its simple user interface includes location, activity and pathogen selection tools which are customisable based on user needs.

Team members: Dr. Zhang Yi Zhong, Dr. Liang Conghui

EMMA is the world’s first massage assistive robot which aims to relieve the shortage of trained therapists in the TCM industry. The robot has a customised, fully rotatable 3D-printed massage tip, a 3D-stereoscopic camera for acupuncture points recognition and localization and a user-friendly interface and recommended guidelines for various sports injuries. AiTreat aims to build a cloud-based, artificial intelligent driven collaborative robotic system which can perform TCM check-ups, take TCM records and perform professional therapeutic massage under the TCM physician’s instruction.

Team members: Jim Gan, Raymond Yeong

Co-Space Robotics is a new robotic concept that combines and connects robotics in a real, physical space with a 3D virtual-reality world in cyber-space. Designed to integrate infocomm technology, digital game based learning with educational robotics to interest, excite and engage younger generations. It is an educational platform that is a fun and engaging way for young people to develop computational thinking skills and early training in programming and algorithm development.

Principal Investigators: Prof. Neal Chung Tai-Shung
Team members: Dr. Tang Yupan, Dr. Xiong Junying, Dr. Han Gang, Dr. Yong Wai Fen, Wan Chunfeng

The thin-film-composite (TFC) hollow fiber membrane features an ultrathin functional layer coated on a high strength polymeric porous support. This unique structure and its high strength renders the membrane to have high potential across many applications (i.e. concentration/purification in F&B industries, separation in pharmaceutical industries, and water treatment). Having been successfully developed and integrated into one inch modules, this product has already been applied in a pilot to showcase how it can effectively harvest clean energy from waste streams.

Team members: Grace Chia, Samuel Ong, Michelle Tan, Krishna Ramachandra

We have built an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) capable of carrying out active manipulation, passive surveying and data collection repeatedly and simply without the requirement for expert pilots. Using the inputs from a modular suite of sensors and actuators, we implement robust algorithms to enable way point navigation, computer vision, and acoustic localisation.

Principal Investigator: Prof Loh Kian Ping
Team Members: Chen Yunxuan, Nipun Batra, Eric Lim

Porous graphene oxide is a US patented (B2) material.

Principal Investigator : Dr. Yan Hong
Team members : Dr Gu Hai Wen, Feng Yang

Project description: A series of fluorine-free, solvent and water based hydrophobic coating materials have been developed. These high performance coatings exhibit robust properties such as contamination-resistant, anti-graffiti, water-repellent, anti-bacterial and are thus inherently self-cleaning. It also demonstrates excellent stability and durability in harsh conditions of strong acid, strong alkali, and mechanical abrasion.

Principal Investigators: Assoc. Prof. Li Zhi
Entrepreneurial Leads: Harine Kanagaraj, Tian Kaiyuan

Project description: We have developed a technological solution which can convert waste grease into biodiesel. Our technology utilises a recyclable biocatalyst process, which does not have any restriction on FFA content in the feedstock, thus allowing waste grease to be turned into a valuable energy source.

Principal Investigators: Asst. Prof Lefebvre Olivier
Entrepreneurial Leads: Dr. Nguyen Dinh Tam, Vivek Narayanan
Team members: Wang Zuxin, Xu Jianxiong

Project description: An electro-Fenton (EF) system generates the hydroxyl radical (•OH), a non-selective oxidant that can react very quickly with many biorecalcitrant industrial pollutants.  EF is the most potent of all advanced oxidation processes. It is a promising technology to treat nonbiodegradable wastewater.

Principal Investigators: Asst. Prof. Chew Jia Wei, Prof. Anthony Gordon Fane
Team members: Andy Cahyadi, Henry Tanudjaja, Aditya Anantharaman

Project description: Our novel Evapo-porometry instrument has several advantages over the Liquid Displacement Porometer, currently the leading lab instrument for pore size distribution measurement of membranes – (i) operation at ambient conditions (ii) applicability for membrane autopsies, and (iii) measurement of a wider range of pore sizes, which extends the applicability to more membrane-based processes.

Founder/CEO: David Pong
Entrepreneurial Leads: Jean Pierre Nshimyimana
Team members: Vincent Loka, Lim Chong Tee, Tan Zhi Yang

Project description: Fieldtrate Plus is a water filtration system that is specifically designed to cater to the lack of clean water in developing countries with a rising number of global disasters. It incorporates four main concepts – simplicity, portability, durability and affordability. Fieldtrate Plus’ core filtration technology is selected due to its proven durability in industrial settings.

Principal Investigators: Asst. Prof. Chew Jia Wei, Prof. William Kantz
Entrepreneurial Leads: Dr. Farhad Zamani, Dr. Amin Booshehri

Project description: Submerged hollow fibre and flat sheet membranes are used in a variety of applications such as membrane bioreactors. This invention exploits the inexpensive buoyant particles and foams, by a judicious manipulation of the module geometry, to scour the membrane surface repetitively thereby replacing aeration. Our innovative technology offers a hefty 75 % reduction in the cost (energy consumption) relative to the conventional aeration.

Principal Investigators: Dr. Su Jincai
Entrepreneurial Leads: Mao Lu
Team members: Ong Rui Chin, Lin Shuning Corliss, Mohd Abid Dhamiri Bin Atan, Wang Fan

Project description: The technology is a multi-bore hollow fiber membrane contactor for water deoxygenation. This novel membrane contactor is developed using a background IP from Prof. Chung Tai-Shung, NUS, ChBE, FOE. It offers larger contact area, faster deoxygenation rate, and better mechanical robustness compared with traditional single-bore hollow fiber membrane contactor.

Principal Investigators: Prof. Sam Lee
Team members: Chen Baisheng, Chen Jiaxin, Liu Junyi

Project description: Our invention provides a variable optical pathlength for industrial process monitoring. The variation adjustment is automatic without any manual interference. It also provides a flow through cell for spectroscopic measurements that is able to provide continuous measurements for on-line monitoring requiring minimal sample fluid volume.

Principal Investigators: Prof Lee Pooi See
Entrepreneurial Lead 1: Vipin Kumar, PhD student
Entrepreneurial Lead 2: Kenneth Ong, Vishnu Kumar
Team members: Li Tao

Project description: Miniaturized pump powered by piezoelectric effect that enables an efficient delivery of fluid transportation at a low power consumption. The pump size can be as small as a dollar coin with thin profile. The fluid delivery is stable and controlled flow rate can be achievable.

Principal Investigators: Tan Toon Cheng, Lisa Ribeiro
Team members: Laurene Kwek

Project description: The portable shower recycles the water and so extends the life span of a fixed amount of water, enabling a small amount of water to go a long way. As it is portable, the components will be light weight, and will be manually operated.

Principal Investigators: Francois Chin Po Shin
Entrepreneurial Leads: Albert Chai
Team members: Eric Toh

Project description: Our technology is designed to fulfill the increasing demand for bigger data pipes due to rich media contents and cloud computing. In addition, this technology has also been widely touted for wireless backhaul in small cell deployment for next generation cellular network.

Principal Investigators: Asst Prof Goh Yang Miang
Entrepreneurial Leads: Zhou Zhipeng, Research Fellow
Team members: Hoe Yee Pin, Wang Qiao, Mohamed Jawad Askar Ali

Project description: A web-based design support system to facilitate selection and design of fall arrest and travel restraint systems for building construction activities.

Principal Investigators: Prof Neal Chung
Entrepreneurial Lead 1: Dr Fu Feng Jiang (Research Fellow)
Entrepreneurial Lead 2: Divya Jain

Project description: Good drinking water quality is something that many of us take for granted. Low pressure RO membrane household device can help to protect the quality of your drinking water supply and remove the health risks.

Principal Investigators: Dr. Koh Sueda, Research Fellow
Entrepreneurial Leads: Thomas Wan Zilong

Project description: Sailing is not easy for beginners to learn, because controlling a sailboat is not intuitive. We propose a design direction for a sailing learning system using interactive media. SmartSail visualizes the subtle changes of the sail not only for the sailor but also for the trainer or spectators viewing from the land. In addition, SmartSail allows sailors to graduate from relying heavily on augmented feedback to attending more to other visual feedback that sailors use without altering the focus of their attention.

Principal Investigators: Assoc Prof Sibudjing Kawi
Entrepreneurial Leads: Yasotha Kathiraser
Team members: Usman Oemar, Ang Ming Li

Project description: Anti-Cokecat involves a facile preparation method for highly dispersed supported metal catalyst with anti-coking properties for CO2 reforming of natural gas/biogas to syngas and hydrogen.

Principal Investigators: Heisel Felix, Researcher
Entrepreneurial Leads: Mateusz Wielopolski, Post-doctoral Senior Researcher
Team members: Tobias Eberwein

Project description: BambooTech involves the development of a high-strength composite material, which employs renewable organic fibres such as bamboo as a resource and can be used as a reinforcement system in concrete and other structural applications. Compared to steel, BambooTech product is lighter, cheaper, renewable, CO2-binding and corrosion-free. These features make it suitable for interior and exterior structural applications.

Organisation: NTU, Dept of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Principal Investigators: Thomas Hongyi Xu
Team members: Dang Minh Nguyen

Project description: Over 50% of electronic failures are caused by thermal problems. Meta Heat addresses these problems by designing efficient heat dissipation devices that can protect sensitive electronic components from being affected by heat flux. It is the world’s first three-dimensional thermal invisibility cloak.

Principal Investigators: Assoc. Prof. Federico Lauro
Entrepreneurial Leads: Rachelle Lauro
Team members: Trent Goldsack, Wesley Goh

Project description: Self-contained sampling devices that will take an array of measurements in aquatic (both salt and fresh water) environments. These products will send all the macro-data via wifi/3D/iridium satellite uplink for data collection and distribution to the web-based community of subscribers. Subscribers will be able to login to a socially networked website and ‘see’ the level of pollution as reported by all networked devices.

Principal Investigators: Professor Sam Li Fong Yau
Entrepreneurial Leads: Divya Jain
Team members: Du Haijun, Lin Xuanhao, Guo Rui

Project description: T-Cat aims to save over a million dollars a year per factory that recycles wastewater and in the process discard water that is high in organic contamination, due to lack of treatment facility for tough organics. T-cat uses the patent pending TiO2 photocatalyst for treatment of organic wastewater, like reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate, for water reclamation.

Principal Investigators: Prof. Robert Marks
Entrepreneurial Leads: Low Yuen Kei Adarina, Research staff
Team members: Prima Dewi Sinawang, Indra Susanto, Maria Regina Hartono

Project description: An integration of screen-printed electrodes and lateral flow strips for a quantitative electrochemical detection of targeted water viruses. The lateral flow strip carries electroactive affinity nanobeads under capillary force with captured target viral components to functionalised microelectrodes, where they are immobilised and their presence enables a quantifiable electrical signal.

Principal Investigators: Ian Gibson
Entrepreneurial Leads: Jian Huei, Mohit, Edmund, Wei Jie

Project description: The Engineering Design & Innovation Centre wishes to provide a facility that will support innovative products through technology development. Central to this is 3D Printing, which combines with other platform technologies (like microntrollers, laser cutting, CNC and assembled parts) to create numerous products and business opportunities. We need to know how to offer this within the NUS environment and outreach to potential beneficiaries and with the best chances of success.

Principal Investigators: Timothy Michael Walsh, Head, Off-Grid PV Systems, SERIS
Entrepreneurial Lead 1: Yi Jinzhou
Entrepreneurial Lead 2: Divya Jain
Team members: Chai Jing, Srinath Nalluri, Khoo Yong Sheng, Jai Prakash

Project description: This integrated framing system will provide the role of both the frame and the junction box, streamline the production process for PV modules. This approach is unique because the current state-of-the-art of PV module manufacturing requires three separate components and processes (the busses, the frame and the junction box) all of which are incorporated into the integrated framing system. The parts consolidation and improved process flow will reduce manufacturing costs for PV module manufacturers.

Principal Investigators: Assoc. Prof Sam Li Fong Yau & Dr Koh Lee Chew, Senior Manager R&D Engineer
Entrepreneurial Leads: Lin Junyu, Chee Siang

Project description: The novel sensor is based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) coupled to Goos Hanchen (GH) effect, which allows the enhancement and direct measurement of GH shift. The novel sensor system will provide a new option for rapid, sensitive chemical and biochemical analysis, with many advantages over the current methods of heavy metals measurement in liquids. The product will allow monitoring with minimal interference from environment.

Principal Investigators: Tan Cheak Khan Willy
Entrepreneurial Leads: Daryl Chew, Sum
Team members: Tong Yu, Hazel

Project description: The process subjects Bombyx Mori (B.Mori) silkworms to a patented method and was scaled up and used to produce silk with increased strength (+49%), strain (+2.2%), breaking energy (+55.1%) and elastic modulus (+39%), when  compared to normal silk. The “enhanced silk” can be spun and reeled into yarn, and then woven into fabric using a variety of weaving patterns.