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Trailblazing in materials science, nanotechnology, and electronics, Luís Pereira is pioneering a sustainable future at AlmaScience, turning visionary ideas and years of academic research into cellulose-based innovations and impactful realities for a greener future.

One such moonshot project answers the question: How can we generate green energy using cellulose-based bio-foams? BRIGHT converts mechanical energy into electrical energy by harnessing movement and vibrations.

In this interview, Luís Pereira, Chief Technical Officer for AlmaScience, answers key questions about the international research project BRIGHT, helping us wrap our heads around one more groundbreaking technology: BRIGHT promises to capture the vibrations of your car seat to turn them into sustainable energy.

In a nutshell: What is BRIGHT?

BRIGHT proposes a new conception of cellulose-based bio-foams activated by combining polymers and bio-compatible elastomers, targeting the conversion of mechanical energy into electrical energy. This will result in mechanical responses grounded on unique micro-to-macro-scale simulation and design strategies.

What could these design strategies be?

The design strategies address what the best internal structure for these foams could be: on one hand, to obtain the exponentially best possible mechanical properties from these foams, on the other to see if they can improve the mechanical-to-electrical conversion.

BRIGHT is one of the most promising technologies at the R&D AlmaScience CoLab in contributing to sustainable, green energy. These mechanical energy harvesting concepts assume great relevance as game-changing contributors to a greener planet.

What makes these concepts a new and distinctive innovation?

The distinctive edge is working on two vectors: one point is the design of the foams to maximize the efficiency of the conversion; the other point is the development of specific circuitry to manage the power generated by the foams. By working on these two dimensions, we can optimize the final output. The concept is particularly relevant in managing power conversion for sustainable large areas of power systems because the method is very scalable – scalability that commonly does not yet exist in similar systems.

What are the possible business developments for this sustainable technology?

We clearly see at least two applications targeting the automotive industry. One is focusing on insulating panels in cars that could make use of the vibrations to turn them into electrical power.

A second application planned is a sensing system to be used on car seats made from these foams. By pairing the material with the movement, we will have the capacity to monitor and rectify the driver’s posture as well as the passengers’ posture. We will either harvest the energy and/or use the energy as a sensor. 

If a driver’s posture is the same for a long period, we can infer tiredness. Now Imagine being able to rectify the driver’s posture – this could be a game changer in road safety. If this technology helps raise drivers’ awareness behind the wheel and prevent someone from falling asleep, we will have checked a major box.

This could also be combined with active seats. For instance, if the system detects that you are putting too much pressure in one area of the seat, then we can maybe change the shape or the pressure in other areas to compensate. Combined with other technologies in the car, we can increase both comfort and safety. 

Where do you see BRIGHT shine in its green technology offer?

The general outcomes are fully aligned with the future challenges concerning sustainability in diversifying energy sources, raw materials rational utilization, carbon neutrality, and eco-design of products and systems.

The surface electrification concept has gained momentum with the possibility of extending it to large areas.

This is “green technology” on at least two levels: in the use of materials made of a natural polymer like cellulose and therefore not fossil; in the conversion itself since the energy produced is converted from mechanical into electrical energy.

Keep in mind that any form of commuting is using and therefore wasting mechanical energy. These concepts of conversion and transformation maximize that loss. As such, greener technology comes not only from the materials used but also from the processes being used to convert energy that would otherwise be wasted into useful energy.

Will outputs of BRIGHT impact the wearables sectors?

This project right now is not focused on wearables. The main avenues are the large area applications like panels in cars, as mentioned above. We could consider car seats as wearables, but if we stick to the definition of “an item that can be worn and used daily”, this will not be the immediate focus. The greatest business opportunities are for large-area applications and transportation applications. 

Could you delve into why movements and vibrations are the real pulse of BRIGHT?

The car is rich in movements and vibrations, up and down, when taking curves, when accelerating and decelerating, when stepping in and out, rotating to look backward at the kids screaming, and so on… That isn’t the case with a plane, most of the time ensuring smooth and turbulence-free commuting. 

In the domestic sphere, you could think of it as used around washing machines that move in rotations and vibrate, and many industrial environments have machinery triggered by vibrations.

Could you tell us more about AlmaScience and its focus on digital technologies such as BRIGHT and PaperWeight AI? What makes the CoLab stand out in this field? 

PaperWeight AI touches upon digital technologies more than BRIGHT, although by combining a platform made of biopolymers with electronics, both technologies can indeed summarize our R&D focus on digital technology that combines elements made of abundant biomaterials with conventional electronics.

Thus, BRIGHT and PaperWeight AI are two great examples of our focus. BRIGHT combines foams that are made of cellulose with electronics used to manage the power extracted from these foams, and in PaperWeight AI you have a sensing surface made of paper combined with electronics that masterminds the control and signal processing of these sensors.

You could say that the digital approach to digital technology is basically combining conventional electronics with other platforms that are made of natural materials, enhancing these platforms with recyclable solutions instead of being wasted and mute in their current existence, making zero or low impact on the environment. By igniting conventional electronics with this new type of electronics, AlmaScience expands its usage with a resolutely sustainable focus.

Another distinctive trait of these technologies is that with both BRIGHT and PaperWeight AI we are targeting very large areas – and this is exactly why it makes sense to use abundant and cost-effective materials instead of conventional electronics, thinking about the volume of e-waste that would be generated when the time comes to dispose of all these large area-electronics.

This combination makes total sense when you need to deploy electronic platforms over large areas.

Let’s focus on your own path and motivations in the field of sustainable innovation. Your bio describes someone professionally agile, versatile, and autonomous. What are the strings guiding your curiosity? And where is it coming from?

I have worked across a lot of different fields during my career, and across different topics. Each time I’ve jumped from one field or topic to another, I have brought with me both my childhood curiosity and a mind focused and trained on research during my academic studies and PhD. My interests rotate around materials science, nanotechnology, electronics, and sustainable innovation. After my PhD, I worked a lot with materials based on cellulose and their potential applications. So yes, I do jump from one topic to another, each time building up my background with more connection points and always aiming to reach past another frontier.

During my PhD, I worked on more conventional materials for electronics. Later, I worked on exploring more sustainable materials and processes to produce electronic and electrochemical devices made of paper or textiles. Recently I have been focusing on using abundant and natural materials for energy storage and harvesting devices. 

Is there a family legacy informing your choice of a scientific field in innovative technologies?

My childhood is where I can find some connection between my curiosity and my eagerness to learn and try to understand things by myself. My parents do not have a scientific background. Most of my childhood explorations were in construction. Once a teen, my parents would rather have wished for me to do something more predictable such as architecture or medicine. As a kid, I found joy in dismantling electronic devices – behind my father’s back, I should add – to understand how things worked, and of course, they often were broken afterward. I would damage more devices than I would fix, but I might have developed the kind of solitary curiosity needed to focus on a PhD, and a versatile outlook unafraid to mess with things with a childlike spirit that nowadays might serve me in sustainable innovation (laughs).  

Then I started working on my thesis and appreciated the individual practice of thinking, researching, and making sense of things with your own brain stamina. The flexibility and independence that working in research induces suits me totally. What drives my interest in science and innovation is the opportunity to create and propose things and never repeat the same thing every day. That surely was a major part of my motivation.

You joined AlmaScience in 2020 to focus on materials science with a sustainable focus. What inspired you to join? And where do you see AlmaScience reaching its highest business performance with sustainable impact?

What I was missing in academia was exactly what AlmaScience filled up as a gap: the materialization of my work.

In academia, we write papers, prepare prototypes, and develop projects in the lab, but we don't experience the materialization of these concepts and findings in society. I mean, when we teach and train younger generations, we do contribute to the field and have an impact… But the implementation of an innovative concept at the root of the industrial world, the physical translation of a technology into products that reach the market impacting a large number of people and effecting change… that transition is priceless. 

Being able to apply the knowledge I accumulated between 2001 (when I started my MSc thesis) and 2020 in an R&D collaborative lab with a clear business focus, and networking from that very place with likeminded multi-disciplinary scientists and industrials who genuinely care for the environment and sustainable innovation, those were my two main motivations. 

Now picture the world we are living in. In a few words, and by contrast, what is the world you wish to live in in the coming decade and leave to future generations? 

What has affected me lately through my teaching, is the volatility of concentration of a young generation plugged and kept tethered to the screen by corporate voluntary practices that have substantially affected kids’ capacity to commit and engage responsibly beyond these very tools. 

In the constant flow of entertainment, the simple notion of a meeting point has vanished. Meeting to debate, to dine together, to explore together, to collectively engage, these notions have been highly compromised by the radicality of the individual screen and its tech prerequisites. This is not a lawsuit against the technology itself, but rather a call for a collective conscience that will help rewrite the algorithms to enhance and nurture knowledge versus the noise and favor mental health and brain development among kids.

Luís Pereira profile

Luís Pereira has recently become an Associate Professor at the School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon, and he is currently AlmaScience’s Chief Technical Officer. He demonstrated versatility and initiative throughout his scientific career which proved critical in building up expertise in different fields, either distinct or complementing his career path. He has been instrumental in coordinating several R&D projects under different funding schemes, including industry direct funding. 

In 2015, he was granted the Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC) for the development of cellulose nanocomposites for paper electronics (NewFund, project 640598). Recent research interests include the design and synthesis of 1D, 2D, and 3D inorganic and hybrid nanostructures, chiral cellulose nanocomposites, functional micro and nanofibers, and their integration on chromogenic, electronic, and electrochemical devices. Luís has published more than 220 papers and has an h-index of 58 with more than 14000 citations (as per Google Scholar).

His main publications include:

• “Multifunctional flexible and stretchable electrochromic energy storage devices”, Libu Manjakkal, Luis Pereira, Eric Kumi Barimah, Paul Grey, Fabiane F Franco, Zhengyu Lin, Gin Jose, Richard A Hogg (2024) Progress in Materials Science, 101244.
• “Sustainable electrochemical energy storage devices using natural bast fibers”, Libu Manjakkal, Amrita Jain, Suman Nandy, Sumita Goswami, José Tiago Carvalho, Luis Pereira, Chan H See, Suresh C Pillai, Richard A Hogg, (2023) Chemical Engineering Journal, 465, 142845.
• “Smart IoT enabled interactive self-powered security tag designed with functionalized paper", Guilherme Ferreira, André Opinião, Shubham Das, Sumita Goswami, Luís Pereira, Suman Nandy, Rodrigo Martins, Elvira Fortunato” (2022) Nano Energy, 95, 107021.
• "UV-cured self-healing gel polymer electrolyte toward safer room-temperature lithium metal batteries" (2022), Simone Siccardi, Julia Amici, Samuele Colombi, José Tiago Carvalho, Daniele Versaci, Eliana Quartarone, Luis Pereira, Federico Bella, Carlotta Francia, Silvia Bodoardo. Electrochimica Acta, 433,141265
• “Porous PDMS conformable coating for high power output carbon fibers/ZnO nanorod-based triboelectric energy harvesters, Raquel Barras, Andreia dos Santos, Tomás Calmeiro, Elvira Fortunato, Rodrigo Martins, Hugo Águas, Pedro Barquinha, Rui Igreja, Luís Pereira” (2021). Nano Energy 90, 106582

In 2020, he joined the AlmaScience CoLab as its CTO. AlmaScience is a tech transfer and incubation institution for smart and sustainable solutions based on cellulose and other natural materials. In the past four years, Luís has been involved in applied research projects highly market-oriented, led and promoted by industrial partners.

Luís is also the President of the Advisory Board to the “From Fossil to Forest” consortium led by The Navigator Company. The consortium hosts/includes over 50 industrial and academic members aimed at developing and implementing innovative solutions in the field of packaging to transform single-use plastic and non-sustainable packages into cellulose-based sustainable and biodegradable packages.

Luís is a member of the board of the Portuguese Professional Engineer Association – South Region, Vice-President of the TCM-Net (Transparent Conductive Materials Network), a member of the board of the Portuguese Materials Society (SPM), and an associate researcher at CENIMAT/I3N.

This work had financial support from the BRIGHT project, M-ERA-NET3/0005/2021, funded by the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology.