Wash clothes using up to 70 percent less water and save energy, all while trapping harmful microplastics. With this pitch, Swedish cleantech startup Mimbly will help cleaning firms and property owners contribute to a more sustainable society – while also saving money. RISE has helped with lab tests and the development of advanced technology, and has quality assured the product for launch later this year.
In times when fresh water is in short supply in many regions of the world, the Western world has not really done much to reduce water consumption or prevent microplastics from entering the environment through laundering.
Until now.
In its first round of external funding in 2020, Mimbly acquired SEK 8.5 million, followed by a further SEK 19 million through the EU’s green development fund.
Isabella Palmgren, one of the founders of Mimbly, came up with the idea in 2016, when her time as a student at Chalmers was coming to an end:
– “I studied biotechnology, entrepreneurship and business development, and needed to find a suitable project for my master’s degree thesis. Since I had lived in Indonesia, Honduras and Panama, where people don’t use washing machines to do laundry to the same extent because of the high water volumes they use and personal economy, it felt like a natural question to find a solution for.”
We will start selling during the year
A box connected to washing machines
If a machine uses 60 litres of water, shouldn’t the final rinses from that machine be reused in the next machine? Yes, if the water is clean enough. This is the principle on which Mimbly’s ingenious innovation is based.
It is a box that is simply connected to existing washing machines as an ‘add-on’. The box consists of both hardware and software, and makes laundering intelligent. The water flows into the box at each rinse, and is both filtered and analysed. Rinse water that is sufficiently clean is used in the next machine, the rest is flushed out as usual, but only after trapping the microplastics dislodged from synthetics during laundering.
The reduced water consumption is an obvious gain, especially for companies where laundering is carried out in large volumes, while microplastics are a problem that easily goes under the radar.
On their website Mimbly describes how plastic particles, as small as 0.05 millimetres, slip into the oceans and end up in seafood, and that 100-200 tonnes of microplastics are released per year, 35% of which comes from laundering synthetic materials.
Initially, Mimbly is targeting cleaning firms and property companies with shared laundry facilities. These companies often have washing machines running virtually around the clock, and therefore have a lot to gain in terms of both sustainability and finances.
From early prototype to producible prototype
During 2020, the product went from an early prototype to a producible prototype.
– “With help from RISE, we spent a large part of the year on development. We finished up in December and we are now ready to shift our focus from technological development to hearing what test customers think of the product and receiving honest feedback so that we can build products that are actually used. We will start selling during the year.”
– This is a good example of a company that we are happy to get involved in; a well-financed startup at an early stage, which has the potential to make a big difference in the market, and which works to develop high-tech solutions that require advanced technical resources, says Jonas Bergqvist, project manager at RISE.
– Together we have been able to improve how their software works and validate the results.
Supports the UN sustainability goals
6.Rent vatten och sanitet
13.Bekämpa klimatförändringarna
Samarbetet med RISE under prototypfasen innebar att Mimbly fick tillgång till ett labb med avancerad kemisk utrustning och expertis på högsta nivå. Aron Hakonen genomförde under året över 100 tvättar, med bland annat smutskläder från korplag i fotboll, mätte vattenkvaliteten vid varje sköljning, utvärderade sensorerna, och kunde bidra till att resultaten både förbättrades och validerades.
– Testutrustningen på vårt labb är oerhört avancerad och ger exakta mätvärden som kunde användas som referenspunkter när vi testade Mimblys sensorer, säger Aron.
Isabella utvecklar:
– Vi jobbade mycket med frågan hur man ska veta när vattnet är tillräckligt rent för att kunna användas även i nästa maskin. Vi tog fram olika hypoteser och testade sensorerna.
Efter labbarbete med RISE har Mimbly en vetenskaplig grund som visar att vatten kan sparas med deras box – kallad Mimboxen – på ett effektivt sätt via en väl fungerande uppsättning sensorer med dokumenterad analytisk prestanda. Dessutom har de mycket goda resultaten i återvinningsprocessen verifierats.
– Att en oberoende tredjepart som RISE validerar resultaten gör oss mer trovärdiga, konstaterar Isabella.