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Episode 37 - Part 1: Innovative Magnetic Concrete: Wireless Energy Transmission for Vehicles - Marcucio Esguerra
59 Plays1 year ago
In part 1 of this episode of SurveyBooker Sessions, host Matt Nally interviews Mauricio Esguerra, the CEO, and co-founder of Magment, about their groundbreaking magnetic concrete technology.
This innovation leverages recycled materials to create concrete with magnetic properties aimed at wirelessly transmitting energy to electric vehicles.
Key points include:
1. The basic concept and technology behind magnetic concrete.
2. The recycling process for creating the material and its environmental benefits.
3. Applications of magnetic concrete in logistics, particularly in charging forklifts and warehouse robots.
4. Efficiency of wireless charging systems compared to traditional wired methods.
5. Installation processes for both new constructions and retrofitting existing structures.
00:00 Introduction to SurveyBooker Sessions
00:15 Meet Mauricio: CEO and Co-Founder of Magment
00:34 Understanding Magnetic Concrete
03:55 Applications and Benefits of Magnetic Concrete
04:27 Exploring Different Types of Concrete
08:00 How Magnetic Concrete is Made
10:03 Charging Vehicles with Magnetic Concrete
18:32 Installation and Efficiency of Magnetic Concrete
24:41 Future Prospects and Final Thoughts
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to SurveyBooker Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to SurveyBooker sessions. Tune in to hear from people working in a range of industries and roles to provide you ideas that you can take away and use in your own business. I'm your host Matt Nalley, the founder and director of SurveyBooker, which is the leading CRM and survey management system for surveyors.
Guest Introduction: Mauricio from Magment
00:00:15
Speaker
On today's episode, we have Mauricio, who's the CEO and co-founder from Magment. So thank you for coming on today. Hello Matt, very happy to be here with you today.
00:00:23
Speaker
That's great to have you on.
Exploring Magnetic Concrete for Energy Transmission
00:00:26
Speaker
I suppose before we go any further, do you want to give us a bit of background as to who you are and what you do, and then I can kind of introduce what we're going to talk about today. Sure, my pleasure. So we founded this company based on the technology, which is magnetic concrete. So you may wonder what this is. It's a concrete that has magnetic properties.
00:00:47
Speaker
as simple as that. And the reason why we make this technology is because that's the best way to transmit energy. um in In most cases, we go with transmission of wireless energy into vehicles. So this concrete is being used ah in order to help coils that are embedded in the ground or in the floor.
00:01:13
Speaker
to make this energy transmission to vehicles. And those vehicles can be either addressed or in motion.
Backgrounds in Material Science and Magnetic Materials
00:01:20
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. I think many people have heard about this. So it's going to be a very interesting episode going through going through this.
00:01:28
Speaker
um It caught my eye because my my background as I've mentioned just before we started recording is I spent a bit of time learning about material science and um and yeah, different materials coming to market and what they can do. So it's caught my eye straight away. and I suppose what got you into this area bit is best my is my first question. Absolutely. That's really interesting. Actually, my co-founder and I, we are both coming from materials.
00:01:53
Speaker
actually for magnetic materials. okay And in order to um avoid the confusion There is two different types of
Sustainable Concrete Innovations with Recycled Materials
00:02:03
Speaker
magnetic materials. There is the so-called magnets or hard magnetic materials. And there is the so-called soft magnetic materials, which are not magnets, but are magnetic only when they are exposed to a magnetic field. Normally you would think of, for example, of iron. Iron is not a magnet, it's just a soft magnetic material. So we we have been working on this kind of materials
00:02:29
Speaker
However, there is a special type of materials called ferrites, which are actually iron oxide materials. okay And ah coming from that area, we found a very interesting way of recycling materials like ferrites in order to be used as aggregates of concretes. That's where our our idea came from. As a matter of fact, we both were working for Siemens. We are both based here in in Munich. So Siemens is a company here. That's about 20 years ago, right? And so we found this possibility
00:03:08
Speaker
to combine ah the but say the recycling of these ferrite materials of these conventional and magnetic materials. in order to make the aggregates of a concrete and make a complete new type of concrete using those aggregates. So what I just explained, as you can imagine, is not only that we are combining two completely different fields, magnetic materials and concrete, but we are also doing this in the course of recycling because everything that we make on our concrete is 100% recycled.
00:03:46
Speaker
So that gives us a lot of issues about being very green and being fairly cost efficient.
Applications and Innovations in Concrete Technology
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, very, very interesting. I suppose, well, just to introduce this topic then, so we're going to cover um how how concrete can be used to recharge vehicles, a title I never thought we'd have, because I love it. And then part two, we'll come on to the different applications of this sort of self-charging concrete um within yeah know within the built environment and where it can be implemented.
00:04:14
Speaker
um but no Fascinating how you got into it. the i suppose this i but I suppose researching this topic before before um I messaged you about coming on, I noticed there are quite a few different concretes coming to market. so Is it worth maybe coming on to just a quick overview of the different types of but but of concrete that are coming to market and then we can focus in on ah this type of concrete specifically?
00:04:39
Speaker
Yes, well, I need to i need to to tell you, of course, I'm not a civil engineer. Actually, I'm a physicist. So what I know about concrete is to a good extent very much related to this specific type of concrete that we make. ah Obviously, and here's the interesting thing, ah we're working very close to the largest cement companies worldwide.
00:05:04
Speaker
which are not only our partners, they are also our investors. So we're talking about companies like Holsim, which is the largest, or Cemex, the second largest. So those are the companies that we have been learning about concrete most of the time. But in in fact, you're right, you you can you can make a lot of variations around concrete. And i look at this also for a better understanding. Concrete at the end of the day is a composite material. So you have a matrix binder, which is the cement. And you have ah ah aggregates, which can be very different different things. And so you can raise a couple of different properties. So there is, for example, ah let's say close to our technology,
00:05:58
Speaker
there is at MIT in the US, there is a technology developed to make concrete as a energy storage type of material. And this is using not magnetic properties as we do, they are using electric properties. So this is one of these very interesting innovations. And you could go with many other, many other, let's say,
00:06:25
Speaker
fields regarding also luminosity regarding also um let's say porosity in order to make certain type of applications on the road and many other things. One of the most interesting things I've seen is the possibility to use 3D printing to make like bigger structures all the way to even houses out of 3D printing. so So you see that the enormous variety and I'm going to say something that probably you have already heard from other participants or you yourself having said. So concrete is the second largest material used by humanity after water.
00:07:10
Speaker
So and yeah, I imagine it must be. Right. So it's it's like the most used material ever by humankind. That means that you have a lot of possibilities. And for us as a company, we are profiting from a hugely installed industrial base. So that's why we as a company don't need to have all production. We can go to any pre-casting company,
00:07:38
Speaker
around the world ah to make our products. That's a huge advantage that you can imagine. Yeah, oh absolutely. I think, yeah, just i mean just as an overview of the type of things I've seen, you you run the one, you mentioned the permeable concrete in terms of reducing flood risk and and then glow in the dark and removing pollution. There's there's so many different applications. I suppose specifically with with your concrete then,
00:08:00
Speaker
um Well, how
Energy Transmission and Efficiency in Logistics
00:08:03
Speaker
is it made up? You mentioned obviously it's recycled um sort of electronic components, but how how does that all get formulated to produce something that can transmit electricity? um Because we are in a video, which is quite helpful, I will show you what a ferrite is. Ferrite looks like this, you know. So this is, as I said, an iron oxide-based material.
00:08:29
Speaker
It's something you could also call the ceramic material because it's not metallic, it's just ceramic. okay You can have it in this kind of shape that's very popular in electronics. You can have it also in this way as a kind of a plate. okay So what we actually do is we buy all the scrap coming from production of these materials.
00:08:55
Speaker
or the materials coming from e-waste after the component has been used. And what we do is actually take this as a bulk and just by by using ah regular machines ah to to crack them down into into parts into particles and using seething to have different fractions. That's how we can come up with a mix of these particles and and in a certain proportion, of course, in a certain fraction and so forth, so that we can make at the end a slab, a concrete slab.
00:09:43
Speaker
which normally would not only be the the concrete slab, it would also include a coil inside of this slab. So that means that we end up with a component, if you wish, which is a slab with an like with an electric function. And this component can be installed Right now, our business is more related to warehouses, logistics, and charging vehicles like forklifts and robots. so and And you may ask yourself, why not cars? Why not buses? Why not trucks? Well, it's related to the business, not related to the technology. So you may ask, for example, how many forklifts are electric?
00:10:36
Speaker
about 75%. How many cars? That's not 1%. So obviously, we go to the business where most of the vehicles are already electric. So that's the reason why we are so engaged in in working in this kind of um applications where this slaps I was talking about are being embedded in floors, in factories. So that's basically how the application it works. And and and how how is it able to, or how well is it able to to charge a vehicle as it's driving along? is it is Does it keep it at its um at its level of charge or is it able to you know increase the battery um yeah to charge as as it's as it's going along? As a matter of fact, um what you do is um the vehicle has a receiver.
00:11:33
Speaker
So if you think, for example, our phones today, you know our smartphones, they also have a receiver inside. So you can use it also with a charger. So the same is with these vehicles. Not all of them have the coil already integrated, but you can retrofit it whenever that's required. So the the vehicle moves around the factory and in certain ah portions of the floor, which are basically the ones with most of the traffic of these vehicles. In certain portions, ah they will just drive on it, not doing anything more than going from A to B. That's it. And they charge while they do so. So that means that the vehicle with that receiver passes through a collection of transmitter coils that are embedded in the floor. And this way, they pick up the power.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, fascinating. um it would Interestingly, we've we've we've just recorded an episode also on um ESG in in valuations, economic, social, and sustainability govern and governance, sorry. um I imagine this type of but material system built into a warehouse would but increase the value of that property as well and on on the basis that it's um yeah basically can help keep the warehouse running more efficiently.
00:12:59
Speaker
Definitely. And of course, we are talking about ah something that is brand new and in in two senses, not only our material, which is a very disruptive type of material, you know because you are changing categories. You have concrete, which is a construction material.
00:13:18
Speaker
but it has it has a magnetic magnetic function, right? So that's something that, ah of course, as such is already new, but the application of charging vehicles during motion is also a new type of application that has been enabled by our technology.
00:13:39
Speaker
So having said this, it's of course um um ah the the start of a new market. These two disruptions, the material disruption and the application disruption, is is basically the challenge we are working on.
00:13:56
Speaker
And in order to find the the right type of of users, the right type of customers for this, and we have been working ah with two major companies. um I wonder if I should even try to share my window to show something here.
00:14:15
Speaker
to make it visually a bit more appealing. Otherwise, if that's not possible, I'll just tell you about this. So we work with a company which is leading in the field of forklifts, which is Jungkainrich. It's a German company. I think most people have seen those yellow forklifts around us from this company, Jungkainrich.
00:14:37
Speaker
so This is the partner with which we have been able to develop this technology and to bring it to the end customers. so um Going back to your question, if you think, for example, of a typical application, a so-called cross dot a port so It's the place where the containers coming from a boat are being are being brought and distributed what it's inside into some shelves. And then later on, the trucks waiting at the other side are being loaded with what is there. So that they the forklifts that travel around this crosswalk
00:15:20
Speaker
do ah bring this material from one side to the other. So for this kind of applications, we have been able with Jung Heindrich to find the the corresponding customers like companies like VHL or IKEA or Lidl or you name it, that has this kind of operations. And so the value to them is not just the property with that electric feature,
00:15:46
Speaker
is just bringing the operation to a completely different level, which means productivity. So you can imagine that for a company like, say, DHL, the only thing they cannot afford is vehicles standing in a corner hooked at a cable charging.
00:16:07
Speaker
that is not proactive, that's downtime, right? So you want to have you want to have those vehicles moving all the time around, you know, and that's that's what but this technology is about. And the second point, and I think it's a very key ah feature here, is you can reduce the size of the battery. Think about this, I have just here a small forklift, you can see that here, right? yeah yeah so This small forklift,
00:16:37
Speaker
in the right size, of course, would have a battery inside that can have a weight of about two tons. Yes. But very heavy, very expensive battery. So what you want to do is to reduce the, especially the the cost of this battery by taking only the half or even a third of the size of the normal battery and just charging it all the time as it moves around.
00:17:07
Speaker
still very productive, but the the cost of the fleet and and the like like say the ecological impact of a very big battery is heavily reduced. Because we all know these days lithium-ion batteries are as marvelous as they are are also creating some issues around the the sustainability of getting those materials for making batteries.
Installation and Adaptation of Magnetic Concrete
00:17:37
Speaker
So the less batteries you need, the more sustainable your operation is. So everything has been recognized throughout the industry,
00:17:47
Speaker
especially in the logistics. So I hope that, you excuse me, the long answer to your short question, but I wanted to make the point that the value of our our technology is really to enable this type of very sustainable and very economical operations. Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. I hadn't thought about the um the the battery size aspect. Obviously that makes things much cheaper, but I'd considered the the uptime aspect. So I'd watched a video video recently on I think it was JCB and they've gone into ah hydrogen. Obviously, their stuff's outside a lot of the time. It means, yeah, but making sure that things can remain up the whole time rather than having to charge or whatever. ah I suppose my final question before we can move into so applications. um what What does the installation process look like? I imagine it's easier if you're building a new warehouse, but can you can you also retrofit um into existing warehouses? Right. You can imagine that
00:18:46
Speaker
If you have a slab like this, you know, that has been manufactured at a pre-casting facility. So it goes like with any kind of construction item. So you will bring those elements into the into the construction site. And now you see that I'm talking about one particular case, which is when you are building a new warehouse, for example. So that you would furnish those slabs as the base of the floor. and You would put them like like like domino stalls, one next to the other on the floor, and then would cover that with whatever surface is being used in the operation. So that's the easiest way. And of course, those slabs containing the coils need to be connected to the electric system, feeding them with power.
00:19:46
Speaker
so I would say to make things easier to understand, it's not that different from, for example, a floor heating system. you know Even though this is not to heat, it's to deliver power to the vehicle, but the type of installation is very similar. So that's one thing. However, we also have other cases where the building is already existing.
00:20:15
Speaker
So it's a bit of a challenge, to be honest. So not everybody would like to cut out a portion of the floor, not the whole floor, of course, only a portion. Actually, it's like 1% of the floor, it's not a lot. But still, people would be a bit reluctant to do that. So what we would do in dust those cases, and this is becoming very popular, is to put these slabs on the floor,
00:20:45
Speaker
and accessing those with ramps, right? And so this this idea has been extremely well received. So that's a product that we are selling under the name MacTop, because it's on top of the of the floor, right? And this allows people to get used to these ruptures. I mentioned that the first disruption is concrete with magnetic properties and electric function.
00:21:15
Speaker
And the second is inductive charging of a vehicle. So this way people get familiar to that. They can move it to another place. They can play with this. And when people are convinced or users are convinced of the benefits, they may consider them embedding them into the floor after a certain time.
Efficiency Comparison: Magnetic vs. Traditional Charging
00:21:36
Speaker
So that's the, so if you see that second installation is straightforward. You just put the unit on the floor and connected to the grid, and that's it, for example. Yeah, yeah. So it's quite easy to to at least try it out. I suppose my actual final question, because I've thought of another one, um you mentioned about obviously um ah underfloor heating as as an as as a comparable example, and that got me thinking about obviously, c ah I don't know, heat waste effectively. So um um what I mean by that is how how efficient are the um the the panels that are converting electricity from yeah a grid to
00:22:14
Speaker
Thanks for this question because this is one of the most important ones. One is charging would not have any chance ah to succeed if efficiency would be different or lower from cable charging. Incredibly enough, ah in in the field where we are mostly working currently with forklifts and robots, we can even feature a higher efficiency.
00:22:44
Speaker
And we're talking here about efficiencies in the range between 92 to 95% of the energy arrives at the battery of the vehicle. So that means that you how hardly have losses. Of course, you need to, when you think about you have a transmitter, up either sitting on the floor or under the floor, and you have a vehicle at a distance of maybe eight, 10 centimeters or something like that. So you need to overcome this distance with the magnetic field. but ah And here's the benefit of our technology. We can shape these coils and the way that they are embedded into the magnetic concrete in a way that would maximize like the coupling to the receiving core. And this is how that is possible.
00:23:43
Speaker
And you will be surprised to hear that if we talk we take the the specific case of a forklift, like this, where charging with a cable would require a very high current. So I don't know how much the audience is familiar with current values, but to give you an idea, it's like 200 amperes would have to flow through this cable to charge this vehicle.
00:24:13
Speaker
So the efficiency of cable charging is actually lower than inductive charging because of the high current. yeah yeah And so we have a sort of specific advantages, but the efficiency is always on on on the positive side. So we are never going to waste energy as compared to conventional charging. That's very, very interesting. Very interesting. um I suppose my um The last question I do actually want to ask, and I keep saying last question, which I'm i'm good at doing, yeah yeah is, I just want to understand a bit more, I suppose, about the the material itself. So I know you've mentioned there's this sort of a coil effectively that, um that, yeah, sort of helps transmit the electricity, but also particle particles of of um the sort of, of different period's great Yeah, how how does that, how's that, um
00:25:09
Speaker
added into the material aspect but between the sort of chord and the particles aspect. How does it work together to basically help? have a it you need to think about a concrete slab. I mean, let's say to make it simple, one square meter and five centimeters can take more or less. Yeah. Okay. And then you bring
00:25:36
Speaker
Coil like this one. Do you see this? This is a coil. Yes. It's a covered coil. And you bring this and embed it into the fresh concrete. Actually it's been done upside down. Actually you put the coil at the bottom of the mold and then you pour the concrete on top of that. And when that's ready, then of course you turn around and then you have the coil embedded. And you see here, you have here the connection. And so you connect it.
00:26:03
Speaker
to deliver power and the vehicle would be having a smaller coil sitting somewhere here. That's it. Yes. It's very, very straightforward to make and very straightforward to produce. Fine. And the particles you mentioned, are there ah is that taking the particles and and melting them down into a coil? Well, done no, no, no, actually, sorry, maybe that was in here. You make, like with any concrete,
00:26:31
Speaker
you make a mix, so that means that while you have the the cement and the particles in in in a dry mix first, then by applying water, then you would create, and so to speak, the the fresh concrete that you would pour into that core. That's it. So that means it's like like if you would buy a a ready-mixed dry concrete,
00:26:59
Speaker
and just apply it yourself by only adding work. So that's that's the basic idea. Of course, there is other ways of doing those mixes, but this is the most common one. Got it, got it, got it. Oh, interesting. um I think it's fascinating material. um ah We'll move on to topic two, to join us for topic two, and we can cover the applications of of charging concrete within the built environment.