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For the growing market of electric mobility, Europe must develop its own innovative battery concepts and production chains in order to increase its international competitiveness. This is the goal with which ASTRABAT is now launching. In this major European project, 14 partners from eight European countries are joining forces.

Within the framework of the EU joint project “MiDiCoat“, coating systems made of titanium carbon nitride and aluminum oxide are to be further developed over the next three years in such a way that they can be used for tools in the high-speed machining of metals for longer periods of time without the use of lubricants that are hazardous to the environment and health.

Hydrogen plays a key role in the search for future energy sources that reduce CO₂ emissions and provide a stable energy supply. The joint project "Neo-PEC" therefore aims to develop a tandem module that will be able to produce green hydrogen in a clean and cost-effective manner, thus enabling a decentralized hydrogen supply using an energy carrier which is transportable according to demand. With the help of the module, water is directly split into hydrogen and oxygen by photo-catalytic means (Photo Electro-Catalytic (PEC) Water Splitting). This novel technology does not require expensive electrolyzers and is scalable as required. For the three-year project "Neo-PEC", 3.4 million euros are being made available to the participating partners Fraunhofer IKTS, IST and CSP within the framework of the Fraunhofer internal funding program PREPARE.

The BMBF InnoHealth China campaign – led by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft – looked for the most innovative ideas in AI, telemedicine, precision healthcare, biotechnology and drug discovery and healthy food. Now the winners have been chosen: Seven tandems, each of them consisting of one representative from research and science and one from a SME or start-up.

The Fraunhofer IKTS advises the world's leading certification body for agriculture GLOBALG.A.P. on the revision of its certification standards for "Good Agricultural Practice". The Institute is contributing its expertise in the areas of water treatment, nutrient recycling, closed-loop and cognitive agriculture.

Heat pumps play a decisive role in the energy transition: Sustainably generated electricity provides heat in winter and a good climate in summer. Nowadays, heat pumps work almost exclusively on the basis of compressor technology. Compressors require harmful refrigerants, the use of which will be restricted even more by law in the future. In the Fraunhofer ElKaWe lighthouse project, six Fraunhofer Institutes are developing highly efficient electrocaloric heat pumps, which do without harmful refrigerants.

For the agricultural sector, large quantities of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphor, are needed in order to attain sufficient yields per hectare. On the one hand, these nutrients are cost-intensive and are chemically produced or respectively extracted, processed and transported with partly considerable environmental consequences to be used as so-called “mineral fertilizers” by farmers.

The Fraunhofer Center for Energy Innovation CEI at the University of Connecticut UConn was founded on July 25, 2013. The aim of the center is to further advance innovative technologies for energy storage, management and distribution, hydropower utilization and fuel cell development through contract research. Especially in the field of environmental technologies, Fraunhofer CEI and Fraunhofer IKTS have been cooperating closely for years.

For many years now, miniaturization has been the main driver of the electronics industry. This is particularly true for ceramic-based circuit boards, which have properties that make them especially suitable for high-frequency circuits. Increasingly demanding technical requirements have exposed the limits of the classic thick-film technologies used for the production of circuit-board conduc-tors. Now, however, a new generation of thick-film pastes and their photolitho-graphic structuring enable the manufacturing of extremely high-resolution thick-film structures necessary for 5G applications. Moreover, this process is suitable for mass production and industrial applications while maintaining low investment costs and only minimally extending production times. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS exhibit the new pastes at the Productronica trade fair in Munich from November 12 to 15 (Hall B2, Booth 228).

The newly founded Senodis Technologies GmbH presented itself for the first time at the Hightech Venture Days 2019. The first product to be marketed by the spin-off of Fraunhofer IKTS in Dresden, Germany is the Ceracode technology developed at IKTS for individual marking and data acquisition in hot metal forming.

Accompanied by Heike Taubert, Thuringian Minister of Finance, the Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Fraunhofer IKTS in Hermsdorf.

Katrin Göring-Eckardt, member of the German Bundestag and leader of the parliamentary group Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, visited IKTS at its Hermsdorf site. It was the native Thuringian’s first visit to the ceramics research institute.

To ensure that micro combined heat and power (CHP) plants will function efficiently and environmentally friendly with regenerative fuels in the future, researchers at Fraunhofer IKTS, together with partners from industry and science, have developed a new, fuel-flexible biomass CHP technology for the power range from 25 to 150 kW as part of the Horizon2020 project FlexiFuel-SOFC.

The speedy reduction of worldwide CO2 emissions is one of the most pressing and challenging tasks of our time. Alongside the strategy of avoiding CO2 emissions altogether, there are a number of technologies which transform unavoidable CO2 into valuable products. But these so-called power-to-X processes are currently still inefficient and expensive. Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS in Dresden have developed reactors based on ceramics, which use CO2 and water vapor to produce raw materials for the chemical industry in a much more efficient and climate-neutral way.

The expansion of onshore wind turbines is stagnating. This is mainly due to rarely suitable areas and protests by residents. Wind turbines on the open sea are an alternative – but the production of offshore energy is currently much more expensive. This is also due to the higher maintenance costs. Fraunhofer IKTS has developed a measuring system that is permanently installed on the foundation structure of offshore plants to permanently monitor it. This reduces the effort required for cost-intensive on-site operations and thus the mainte-nance costs.

Cardiovascular stents are special implants used to widen blood vessels that have become constricted as a result of calcium deposits. In some cases, the body’s immune system can reject these implants in a process known as foreign-body reaction. In a joint project with partners, Fraunhofer researchers in Dres-den have now developed enhanced coatings that substantially improve the bio-compatibility of stents.

Almost 30 participants from media, business and science accepted the invitation of the Thüringer Erneuerbare Energien Netzwerk e.V. (Thuringia Renewable Energy Network - ThEEN) and the Bundesverband Energiespeicher (German Energy Storage Association - BVES) and informed themselves about current storage technologies, Thuringia's strengths in research and ongoing economic initiatives during a one-day press trip through Thuringia.

Imagine a truck tarp that can harvest the energy of sunlight! With the help of new textile-based solar cells developed by Fraunhofer researchers, semitrailers could soon be producing the electricity needed to power cooling systems or other onboard equipment. In short, textile-based solar cells could soon be adding a whole new dimension to photovoltaics, complementing the use of conventional silicon-based solar cells.

Dr. Mathias Herrmann was honored with the JECS Trust Award for his scientific publications and the appointment as ECerS fellow during the 16th Conference of the European Ceramic Society ECerS in Turin.

To date, little is known about what happens to microplastic in the sea. The MICRO-FATE project is expected to bring about a change to this situation. The international team of researchers intends to find out where microplastic accumulate in the ocean, how it is degraded and the effects it has on the environment. A five-week expedition on the research vessel SONNE across the Pacific Ocean from Vancouver to Singapore marks the start of the project. Their most important objective is to take and conserve samples for upcoming laboratory analysis in addition to performing initial experiments. Fraunhofer IKTS investigates on bord the changing properties of plastic particles due to weathering and fragmentation.