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MSc Cleantech Innovation students presented their final projects at the end-of-year showcase.

During the programme’s annual showcase, students from the MSc Cleantech Innovation programme, run jointly by the Dyson School of Design Engineering and the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment, presented their final group projects tackling some of the most pressing sustainability challenges of our times.

The eight teams presented ventures addressing a wide range of sustainability challenges: from AI‑enabled infrastructure software and radiative cooling technologies to novel systems for water conservation, battery recycling, and microplastics capture. The projects reflected the programme’s hands-on approach and its emphasis on turning ideas into viable ventures. 

CellHound

CellHound addresses a growing risk in recycling infrastructure: lithium-ion batteries hidden in mixed waste streams. As electrification accelerates, undetected batteries pose a threat to recycling operations, causing fires and equipment damage. Built for recycling plants, material recovery facilities, and other waste operators, CellHound adds a new sensing layer that helps make recycling systems more resilient. Using magnetic induction spectroscopy and machine learning, it can identify battery signatures even when they are buried, dirty, or invisible to camera-based systems, helping operators protect their infrastructure, maintain smooth operations, and support higher-quality material recovery in a circular economy.

Flowsonic

Microplastics from textile factories enter rivers, oceans and food chains every day, yet most industrial filtration systems are not designed to capture particles at this scale. Flowsonic is an ultrasonic microplastic removal unit that integrates directly into factory wastewater lines, capturing synthetic particles before they reach the drain. Working on the principle of acoustic physics, Flowsonic drives high-frequency sound waves through a treatment chamber to generate a standing wave field. As wastewater flows through, microplastic particles experience an acoustic radiation force that concentrates and clusters them, enabling continuous extraction.

Mosquill

Climate change is extending mosquito breeding periods and enabling species to spread into new regions. Current large-scale control measures often struggle to address small breeding sites around homes, including swimming pools and fountains, that can become larval hotspots. Existing solutions to the problem typically rely on chemical treatments or frequent cleaning, introducing both pollution concerns and ongoing maintenance burdens. Mosquill offers a physical, autonomous alternative. The floating device generates periodic surface vibrations, creating small waves that disrupt the development of mosquito larvae and deter the insects from using these sites as breeding environments. 

Silica Labs

Inside metal-roofed factories across India, Pakistan, and Southern China, summer temperatures regularly exceed 50°C. Extreme temperatures put workers at risk and bring production to a halt, yet the costs of air conditioning exceed the financial means of most factory owners. To address this issue, Silica Labs has developed a bio-based cooling sheet that requires no electricity, no maintenance, and no ongoing cost, yet can reduce indoor temperatures by up to 15°C from a single, permanent installation. Retrofittable onto any existing metal roof, Silica Labs offers a more affordable and durable alternative to air conditioning and reflective paint.

V-Flow

VFlow is a high-performance liquid cooling solution designed to address the growing thermal management challenges associated with next-generation data centres and high-power DC-DC converters. As power density continues to increase, conventional cooling structures often struggle to dissipate heat effectively, leading to thermal hotspots, reduced efficiency, and shortened component lifespan. VFlow addresses this challenge by combining passive heat dissipation with active liquid micro-channel cooling. Its modular design makes it suitable for deployment across a wide range of high-density computing environments, supporting the increasing demand for advanced thermal management technologies.

WOSHA

Two billion people worldwide lack access to basic handwashing facilities – a problem that is particularly prevalent in refugee camps and humanitarian crisis settings. WOSHA is a closed-loop handwashing station developed in partnership with Oxfam, designed to address this at scale and sustainably. Its greywater recovery system dramatically reduces water consumption without reducing access, while its filtration media can be maintained entirely on-site with no specialist knowledge or imported parts.  

4DX

The clean energy infrastructure the world urgently needs, including nuclear, rail, and grid upgrades, is already being built, yet more than 91% of major infrastructure projects are delivered behind schedule or over budget, with every year of delay carrying a measurable carbon cost. 4DX is an AI-powered construction planning and visualisation tool designed to address this issue. By unifying construction datasets (including 3D models, schedules, documents, meeting transcripts) into a single intelligent interface, 4DX allows construction teams to visualise how a project will be built, identify any potential issues in advance, and make faster, better-informed decisions.

Carbohelm

CarboHelm is a decision-support platform for onboard carbon capture in the maritime sector. It helps shipowners, operators and maritime stakeholders compare different capture technologies before installation, using vessel and operational data such as engine power, fuel consumption, operating profile, energy demand, storage needs and cost assumptions. The platform combines vessel data, engineering calculations, environmental assessment and AI-assisted recommendation logic to compare the most suitable options for each case. It also supports scenario comparison, system sizing and report generation. Rather than treating carbon capture as a single solution for every ship, this tool helps each vessel identify the pathway that best fits its operation.

Audience during the Show.

, Director of Training at the Grantham Institute and Co-Director of the Cleantech Innovation course, said: “Sharing these projects with the public at their final stage is an important part of the process. It helps raise awareness of cleantech innovation, sparks interest, and creates space for valuable discussion and new opportunities. But what a showcase does not fully capture is the journey each student has taken to get there.

“From identifying a climate challenge they wanted to address, to refining their idea, engaging with stakeholders, testing technologies, assessing commercial viability, building new skills, and continually iterating their prototypes, the development process behind each project is deeply impressive. What makes these projects so impressive is not only the final outcome, but the scale of learning, creativity, persistence, and innovation involved in reaching it.”

, Assistant Professor at the Dyson School of Design Engineering and Course Co-Director, added: “Each project represents the culmination of hard work by the students, supported by expertise from across 51³Ô¹ÏÍø. The showcase is also made possible by the dedication and specialist knowledge of the many staff who play a vital role in prototyping, development, and exhibition design.”