Students from the Beauvais campus distinguished themselves at this year's Biomim'Challenge, a competition for biomimicry projects, which took place at the Biomim'expo on June 11 and 12.

This event highlights innovative projects inspired by nature, encompassing forms, materials, properties, processes and functions of living things. Participating teams have the opportunity to pitch their projects live, in 180 seconds, to a panel of judges and a community of experts.

PINE'HOT: A bio-inspired innovation

The UniLaSalle team of Alix DE LA FOUCHARDIERE, Mathieu PAULIN, Léane PEYROT and Max ROUSSELET has set itself apart from the competition with its PINE'HOT project. Supervised by their teacher-researchers Maxime DENIS and Arnaud DUJANY, the students developed this project in partnership with Ceebios.

PINE'HOT is inspired by the pine cone to develop new industrial heat exchangers. These exchangers are designed to be more efficient at recovering waste heat, thereby reducing energy losses and improving the carbon balance. The pine cone, with its natural ability to open and close its scales according to environmental conditions, served as the model for this innovation.

The benefits of PINE'HOT :

Reduced energy losses: Thanks to an optimized design, PINE'HOT enables better heat recovery.

Improved carbon footprint: By limiting heat loss, this project contributes to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

And a victory to boot!

The Biomim'Challenge jury was won over by PINE'HOT's originality and efficiency, earning the UniLaSalle team 1st prize in the Biomim'Challenge 2024. This success recognizes the hard work and ingenuity of the students, as well as the invaluable support of their supervisors and partners.

Congratulations to Alix, Mathieu, Léane and Max on their victory. Their victory in the Biomim'Challenge 2024 is proof that bio-inspired research and innovation has great potential for meeting tomorrow's industrial and environmental challenges.