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Since this year, the Center for Economics and Management of Technologies (CEM), based in Halle (Saale), has been integrated as a new structural unit at Fraunhofer IKTS. In this interview, its director, Dr. Daniela Pufky-Heinrich, and the deputy director of Fraunhofer IKTS, Prof. Dr. Michael Stelter, provide an insight into the future collaboration.

Our Tuesday feature: In the #diensttalk, our employees give a little insight into their work and reveal the vision that drives them. Christiane Schuster works on optical testing methods and nanosensor technology at the IKTS site in Dresden-Klotzsche. As head of the working group of the same name, she explains what lies behind this and reveals her personal research highlights to date. We also find out what she is most passionate about.

People at Fraunhofer IKTS are driven by the aim to develop holistic economical and sustainable systems as well as services for practical applications. They work together across various disciplines to gain insight into the complex questions of our time, and drive innovation.

Carbon (or simply: C) has a bad reputation. At the same time, carbon is everywhere. It is the atom of life and shapes our entire economy. Carbon is part of our DNA, the foods we eat, and the products we use every day. Carbon is part of the fuels that power our vehicles and factories or heat our homes, and the materials we use to build our cities. In industry, carbon is both a source of energy and a raw material – all of organic chemistry and the downstream added value, including the building materials and plastics industries, is based on carbon.

The Tuesday feature. In the #diensttalk series, our employees give a brief insight into their activities and reveal what vision drives them. This time, Dr. Stefanie Seitz, transfer expert at IKTS, gives us an insight into how she develops innovative formats for vocational training, e.g. for the automotive industry, and supports researchers in putting their ideas, knowledge and developments into practice.

Wastewater treatment in sewage plants is conventionally carried out in three stages: First, there is mechanical filtration, followed by biological treatment, and finally secondary sedimentation, in which the treated wastewater is separated from the sewage sludge. Increasingly, however, a fourth treatment stage is being used, which is intended in particular to remove micropollutants such as pesticides or detergents from wastewater. In this treatment stage, ozonation takes place. The ozone (O3) reacts with organic compounds, bacteria, viruses and other pollutants in the water and causes their oxidation or destruction.

In the Paris Agreement on climate protection, the global community for the first time made a binding commitment under international law to ambitious climate protection targets. The countries involved want to work together to drive forward the global energy transition. This requires breakthrough technologies such as those that have been the focus of developments at Fraunhofer IKTS since the institute was founded in 1992. In particular, high-temperature electrolysis-based system chains, which, for example, produce hydrogen, synthetic fuels and fertilizers particularly efficiently from green electricity, air and water, are now about to make an evolutionary leap from the laboratory to international practical use.

A clever idea is paying off: coating stirrers in biogas plants with specially developed polymer concretes can double their service life. The researchers at Fraunhofer IKTS now intend to conquer other markets with their extremely wear-resistant coating technology. Industries that have to stir or pump aggressive substrates and suspensions could benefit enormously. The focus is on the chemical industry and the food and construction industries. But exciting solutions are also on the horizon for wind power rotor blades, which could reduce erosion damage.

The Tuesday feature. In the #diensttalk series, our employees give a brief insight into their activities and reveal what vision drives them. This time, PhD student Micha Philip Fertig provides insights into doctoral studies at Fraunhofer and his research on sustainable solid-state batteries.

The necessary moment for the scale-up of sustainable battery technologies was yesterday. In China, cars with sodium batteries are already on the market. Yet Germany itself is only the blink of an eye away from launching them – if the right course is set now. The decisive aspect here is the intelligent use of regionally and technologically diversified know-how. The ”New Via Regia of Batteries“ holds opportunities.