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If your innovation doesn’t match a specific requirement, you can still share it as a general technical solution.
Stable salt hydrates
Overview
Detergent powders use soluble salts heavily as part of their composition. There is a need to reduce chemicals used in the composition. This can be potentially achieved by including higher levels of water without impacting physical properties of detergent powder.
Main Requirements
- Water soluble salt hydrates that have significant amount of water associated with them (at least 50% by weight)
- Stability: raw material, in detergent powder and under high temperature and humidity
- Commercially viable process to make salt hydrates with good scalability (e.g. with right layering aids and processing steps)
- Cost of salt hydrate should be similar to current salts used in detergent powders
Desired Outcome
- Detergent powders with significantly high level of water without any issues in processing and shelf life
- Feasibility of inclusion across different powder processing routes
What we are not interested in
- Ingredients and impurities in materials with Safety concerns
- Already known gelling polymers and insoluble materials
Stable salt hydrates challenge: send an application
Tough Stain Removal
Overview
We are seeking new technologies that are aligned to our cleaner choices agenda to meet consumer need of removal of tough stains such as collar & cuff soil and cooking oil stains with reduced effort.
Main Requirements
- Weight and Cost efficient technologies that are compatible in powder detergent formulations
- Biodegradable materials
Desired Outcome
- Consumer perceivable differences in stain removal (as demonstrated in a consumer test)
What we are not interested in
- Known technologies (known surfactant mixtures, enzymes, polymers, etc)
- Technologies that have safety concerns
- Not compatible with detergent formulations
Tough Stain Removal challenge: send an application
Solutions to reduce energy consumption in ice cream frozen cabinets
Background:
Unilever is the largest Ice Cream manufacturer in the world, with over a billion smiles delivered every year in over 40 countries. Every day, millions of consumers choose our products from the frozen cabinets in the local baker, at a beach kiosk, or in a convenience store. These frozen cabinets keep our ice cream perfect for consumption, but also represent the largest part of our greenhouse gas footprint, due the energy required to maintain ice cream frozen at -18oC. We are looking for solutions to lower the energy use per cabinet while maintaining the required ice cream quality.
Description & Key Features:
We are looking for cost-effective solutions to reduce the energy consumption in ice cream frozen cabinets - horizontal, vertical, and scooping models are all in scope.
Example of areas of interest where we are seeking solutions include:
1.1: Improvements to energy use in vapour compression refrigeration systems and low-carbon alternatives to vapour compression
1.2: Insulation materials for body of frozen cabinet
1.3: Insulation films for transparent cabinet lid
1.4: any other cost-effective solutions that can contribute to reduce the energy consumption in ice cream frozen cabinets
Desired Outcome (include preferred collaboration types here) :
Unilever is open to a range of collaboration types however proof of concept is required, and preference is given to technology that has moved towards commercialization.
Solutions to reduce energy consumption in ice cream frozen cabinets: send an application
Share an idea
If your innovation doesn’t match a specific requirement, you can still share it as a general technical solution.