• Date 2024-10-15

Sustainable manufacturing process for aerogels

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Renner, Head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT, received the Innovation Award of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia 2024 in the "innovation" category for a novel production process for aerogels that is suitable for the mass market.

Aerogels are the lightest solid material in the world - they consist of up to 99.8 percent air. They are also sustainable, as they are made from the mineral raw material silicon dioxide. The fine structure of the aerogel makes it a high-performance insulator with very low thermal conductivity. However, the production of thermal superinsulators has so far been cost-intensive, which is why they have only been used in niche applications.

Fraunhofer UMSICHT set itself the goal of producing aerogels cost-effectively thus making them suitable for mass production. Within six years, the researchers developed an innovative production process for aerogels that combines various production steps using supercritical CO₂ and thus significantly reduces production costs: manufacturing costs were cut by 70 percent and production time from more than ten to four hours. The production process is also free of environmentally hazardous chemicals. The team is now preparing to scale it up to industrial scale.

Source:

Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT, Press release / October 01, 2024
https://www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2024/nrw-innovation-award-aerogels.html

Further information (partly in German):

• Innovationspreis NRW 2024
  Zukunft made in NRW – Vier visionäre Projekte ausgezeichnet
  Oktober 2024 https://www.vditz.de/newsroom/news-detail/zukunft-made-in-nrw-vier-visionaere-projekte-ausgezeichnet
• Innovator des Jahres 2024
  Nominiert zum Publikumspreis: AEROLIGHT GmbH https://www.innovator-des-jahres.com/innovator/aerolight-gmbh/
• Preisträger NRW – Wirtschaft im Wandel / Land der Ideen
  AEROLIGHT ist Preisträger 2024 in der Kategorie Startup https://land-der-ideen.de/wettbewerbe/nrw-wirtschaft-im-wandel/preistraeger-2024
• Sustainable, affordable building insulation with aerogels | Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize 2023
  https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/about-fraunhofer/excellence-in-research/fraunhofer-research-awards/2023/joseph-von-fraunhofer-prize-2023-umsicht.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1eD5W2SE3Y