Press releases | News

Patients with severe respiratory or lung diseases require intensive treatment and their lung function needs to be monitored on a continuous basis. As part of the Pneumo.Vest project, Fraunhofer researchers have developed a technology whereby noises in the lungs are recorded using a textile vest with integrated acoustic sensors. The signals are then converted and displayed visually using software. In this way, patients outside of intensive care units can still be monitored continuously. The technology increases the options for diagnosis and improves the patient’s quality of life.

To convert food scraps and other biological waste back into usable materials, the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS, together with industry and research partners, built a facility in Thallwitz near Leipzig that is unique worldwide. It produces synthetic fuels and biogenic waxes from biogas – not only from the contained CO₂. The biogas is obtained from old fats used in catering and food production. If required, a ceramic electrolyzer can be connected, which also provides the required substances for the process using electricity from renewable energies. IKTS now intends to further develop the innovative plant concept for industrial-scale production in cooperation with a Leipzig-based company.

Research into new, forward-looking approaches to a safe and sustainable water supply is being promoted in Thuringia in the long term. The Thuringian Water Innovation Cluster (ThWIC), jointly initiated by the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS and the Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences Jena, prevailed in the final round of the Clusters4Future competition and will be funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research from 2023 onwards. This means that over the next nine years, up to 45 million euros in funding will flow into the development of new water technologies and research into how society deals with this increasingly scarce resource.

On Wednesday, June 29, 2022, the InSignA High-Performance center was officially opened at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau. Due to Corona, the official opening could only take place one year after the actual project start. Five Thuringian Fraunhofer Institutes, the TU Ilmenau and the IMMS Institut für Mikroelektronik- und Mechatronik-Systeme gemeinnützige GmbH have already been working together in the performance center since March 2021. Together with businesses, the performance center aims to bring solution approaches in the field of sensor technology and signal analysis into application. IKTS with its Battery Innovation and Technology Center BITC in Arnstadt contributes, among other things, to the pre-processing and optimization of data sets.

Shipping is one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gases, and this is leading shipbuilders and operators on a search for environmentally friendly alternative propulsion systems. Researchers at Fraunhofer have joined forces with partners to develop the HyMethShip concept, in which hydrogen is obtained from methanol. This technology does not require large hydrogen tanks to be carried on board, making it much safer. In the future, it may also prove to be an attractive solution for cruise liners.

Sasol and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) will lead a consortium to develop and optimize next-generation catalysts that will play a key role in decarbonizing the aviation sector through sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Fraunhofer IKTS will contribute know-how in the development and shaping of Fischer-Tropsch catalysts to the project.

The availability of water of suitable quality is a growing challenge worldwide. A number of processes are available for the treatment and processing of industrial and municipal wastewater, which are adapted to the substances contained in the wastewater. The treatment of wastewater containing salts represents a particular challenge, as the separation of salt and water requires a very high technical and energy input. By separating salts from water, they can be put to further use and the discharge of saline wastewater into water bodies can be reduced or even avoided altogether. Using the example of saline leachates from residual waste piles in the potash industry, the “HaSiMem” project will investigate whether the membrane distillation process is advantageous compared to the classic form of evaporation of saline wastewater. The joint project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is headed by K-UTEC AG Salt Technologies and will be implemented over the next three years with the partners Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS, Solarspring GmbH, K+S AG and LMBV mbH.

Prof. Alexander Michaelis, Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS, received the prestigious "Acta Materialia Hollomon Award for Materials and Society" and the "Rustum Roy Lecture Award". Both awards recognize his commitment to the materials sciences for the benefit of society.

The separation of substance mixtures is a basic technical and biological operation. Nature uses a variety of membranes for substance separation, such as vessel walls, cell walls or membrane proteins. In industrial and technical applications, however, conventional separation processes still dominate: distillation/rectification, extraction, crystallization or adsorption/absorption. Compared to these processes, membrane separation requires only a fraction of the energy. With the material properties adapted to the separation task in each case, membranes are an ideal solution for many applications. It is worth investing in membrane development. This is what DGMT Deutsche Gesellschaft für Membrantechnik e.V., VDI Verein Deutscher Ingenieure e.V. and the ProcessNet specialist group Membrane Technology of DECHEMA Gesellschaft für Chemische Technik und Biotechnologie e.V., advocate in their current position paper. The results of the investigations of the German Ceramic Society (DKG) and the German Society for Materials Science (DGM) have also been included here.

On March 28th, 2022, Prof. Dr. Henning Heuer, head of department Systems for Testing and Analysis at Fraunhofer IKTS, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Dresden. The contractual partner is Samyong Inspection Engineering from Seoul, Korea. The agreement is aimed at close R&D collaboration to increase safety of nuclear fuel rods using non-destructive testing (NDT).