Press releases

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.

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 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 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.

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.

Ceramic batteries and membranes for filtration and gas separation – these are the research topics that will be the focus of the future "Pilot Center for Powder Synthesis and Extrusion". The construction phase at the Hermsdorf site of the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS has now begun with a ground-breaking ceremony. The pilot center, which is funded by the federal government and the Free State of Thuringia with 5 million euros, is tailored to the requirements of complex research topics and an important link for future technology transfer. The build will be completed in June 2020.

The new Fraunhofer Project Center for Energy Storage and Management Systems ZESS was inaugurated today, February 7, 2019. Located at the Automotive Research Centre Niedersachsen (NFF) in Braunschweig, it is a joint initiative of the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS, the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST – in close cooperation with the Technische Universität Braunschweig. The purpose of the new project center is to develop existing energy storage systems, both mobile and stationary, to the level of industrial maturity, and to demonstrate new solutions at a level of technological maturity of four to six.

Better batteries for a greater range of electric vehicles – this is the goal of the “EMBATT-goes-FAB” project sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. For that reason, the four project partners thyssenkrupp System Engineering GmbH, IAV GmbH, Daimler AG and the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS are developing bipolar batteries and processes for their fabrication. Thanks to their unique stacked layout, a higher storage capacity and, ultimately, a greater range of the vehicle are achieved using the same surface area. The innovative battery technology will now be taken to the next level of maturity and thus one step closer to industrialization.