Inauguration of UNU CampusLab “Circular Economy” at TUHH

Last week, Marc and Dirk represented aerogel-it at a very special occasion: The inauguration of the new “CampusLab Circular Economy” at Hamburg University of Technology. This event formed part of the 1st Annual United Nation University Hubs Meeting. The inauguration was headed by TUHH president Prof. Dr. Andreas Timm-Giel and Vice President Prof. Dr. Irina Smirnova.

CampusLab project manager Dr. Baldur Schroeter did an excellent job in setting up the lab as well as preparing and executing the inauguration ceremony (despite the many challenges).

aerogel-it was thrilled to be part of the inauguration of the CampusLab Circular Economy at TUHH. The team is very happy and honored to be a part of this great story at TUHH!

Background


In 2024, the UNU Hub „Engineering to Face Climate Change“ had been founded at TUHH. The newly opened CampusLab will serve as an open platform to connect research, teaching, science communication and hands-on innovation. It aims to create excitement for STEM and circular innovation in partnership with NachwuchsCampus and Science made in Hamburg.

What the visitors saw

Several exhibits were shown to the visitors:

👉 TUHH showed exhibits such as oleogels for food applications (Lara Gibowsky), integration of coffee into a circular economy, sustainable lightweight mechanical parts and tailored endless fiber placement for composites.

👉 The traceless materials team showed their awesome plastic-free, injection-molded prototypes based on bio-based raw materials as alternatives to plastic.

👉 Lignopure team members Christin and Wienke exhibited their exciting lignin solutions such as LignoBase for Cosmetics but also lignin-containing foams and composites.

👉 Marc and Dirk presented #aerogel materials for various applications including shipping-ready pilot samples of cellulose aerogel and biomineral silica aerogel granules from the TUHH pilot plant.

Dirk Weinrich, Baldur Schroeter and Marc Fricke at the inauguration of the CampusLab "Circular Economy" at TUHH
Dirk Weinrich, Baldur Schroeter and Marc Fricke at the inauguration of the CampusLab “Circular Economy” at TUHH
aerogel-it pilot samples of cellulose and silica biomineral aerogel
aerogel-it pilot samples of cellulose and silica biomineral aerogel
Traceless at CampusLab Circular Economy
Traceless at CampusLab Circular Economy
Lignopure at CampusLab Circular Economy
Lignopure at CampusLab Circular Economy
aerogel-it at CampusLab Circular Economy
aerogel-it at CampusLab Circular Economy

Next-generation silica aerogel produced at pilot scale

After his recent success with the bioaerogel, Alberto also single-handedly produced ~1000 liters of our next-generation silica aerogel at pilot scale on our plant at TUHH. This is a another major milestone for us.

We have concentrated all of our 15-20 years of aerogel experience and chemical expertise into the design of this material. Our next-generation silica aerogel is a hybrid material made of silica and biopolymers. We like to call it “biomineral” or “LSMA” – for now. There will be some re-branding in the future as we refine the material for various applications. Whatever its name – our customers and partners already really like it.

We see a number of important advantages:

1. If you have worked with current silica aerogels, you will know how dusty and brittle they are. This has always been a big problem for the applicators and integrators. We have tackled this: Our biomineral silica aerogel is not dusty, and it is mechanically stable. This makes it much easier to handle and work with.

2. Due to the improved mechanics, completely new types of aerogel composites can made out of our biomineral silica aerogel. This was difficult to impossible with current silica aerogels! Check out the photo.

3. Recycling and re-use become much more feasible, since the biomineral silica aerogel does not break down into dust quickly.

4. High cost is a problem of current aerogel materials and limits their acceptance. With our raw material choice together with our proprietary manufacturing process, we push for lower cost of aerogel materials. This is one of our core missions.

5. Current silica aerogels suffer from high CO2 footprints. Due to raw material choice and our proprietary manufacturing process, we expect a strongly reduced CO2 footprint for our biomineral silica aerogel. This will be especially important in the Construction industry with its ever stricter GWP targets. But of course improved sustainability is great in any application.

6. We can produce it with the same proprietary manufacturing process as our other aerogel materials – such as our bioaerogels. Multi-purpose production has been validated.

We are now going through the piloting phase and move towards showcases with our partners and customers. Really exciting times for the team!

Aerogels at REAL ESTATE ARENA 2025 in Hannover

Last week, Marc supported by Eduard and me pitched aerogels for slim construction at the REALPitches of the REAL ESTATE ARENA 2025 in Hannover!

Marc highlighted how aerogel superinsulation materials can help to address pressing needs of the Construction industry:

  • Space-saving, slim construction with thermal superinsulation is highly relevant for energetic renovation to conserve interior living space where exterior insulation is not possible e.g. in heritage buildings.
  • Thermal superinsulation also brings value to new buildings where additional living space can be created from an overall slimmer wall design.

Lots of exciting proptech companies pitched over the course of the event:

  • It was great to see the progress TRIQBRIQ have been making with their wood-based construction system.
  • CompositeEdge presented an incredibly thin acoustic insulation material based on their composite technology.

Important topics of the exhibition were decarbonization and sustainability, as well as much-needed digitalization of the Construction industry. Talks and panels of the REAL Future Conference reflected this:

  • In a great talk, Daniel Schreiner of Purpose Green highlighted the massive challenges Germany is facing with the current energy-inefficient building stock and the huge effort required to renovate it.
  • This is also becoming a financial challenge for owners, since increasing CO2 taxation (e.g. EU ETS 2) will significantly drive up energy costs – mostly for them.
  • Plus, energy-inefficient buildings lose value. And banks will increasingly move away from financing of such buildings.
  • Panelists furthermore discussed the unreliable legal framework, lack of digitalization and lack of the required trained workforce as additional challenges.

All in all, the aerogel-it team confirmed their vision of more sustainable and more affordable aerogel superinsulation materials. We are pushing hard to scale our solutions to contribute to these urgent needs.

A big thank you to blackprint for inviting us to the event!

Cellulose aerogel produced at pilot scale!

Last week, the aerogel-it team could celebrate reaching several milestones: Alberto has single-handedly achieved production of 1000 liters of cellulose aerogel beads at pilot scale using our pilot plant at Hamburg University of Technology!

Why is this important to us?

1️⃣ It is likely the largest quantity of bioaerogel ever produced. Alberto may very well have achieved a world record – especially since he did it completely on his own!

2️⃣ Much of the cellulose bioaerogel is required for our BIOVIPWALL project as part of the iclimabuilt (an EC Horizon Europe project). It will be converted to bioaerogel vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) by our partner va-Q-tec. Some bioaerogel VIPs will undergo testing by the project partners, and most will be integrated into carbon-reinforced sandwich elements. With this, we want to demonstrate one of the slimmest wall designs possible while using bio-based superinsulation!

3️⃣ The cellulose bioaerogel is also relevant for bioaerogel VIPs in new, more lightweight logistics solutions as well as greener cooling appliances (replacing for example fumed silica).

4️⃣ Based on the learnings he made, Alberto could validate and further improve his process concepts and equipment designs. This is highly important for scaling to our first large production plant. What is most amazing: Almost all of his designs work exactly as he planned.

It seems hard to believe that a year ago we could only produce a couple of liters at a time in the lab. Now we have reached a whole different level and have produced cellulose aerogel at pilot scale. We will be able to serve our customers with much needed pilot-scale quantities for their testing and showcases.

Cellulose aerogel produced at pilot scale
Cellulose aerogel produced at pilot scale

Meeting for CO2-optimized Construction for Roads and Paved Surfaces at DBU

Recently, Marc presented our aerogel-it activities and products at the meeting for CO2-optimized construction for roads and paved surfaces (CO2-optimiertes Bauen von Verkehrsflächen & Straßen). The meeting took place at the DBU Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt Umwelt in Osnabrück.

Michael Hafemann and Mark Gieseke of Gieseke Gruppe expertly moderated the event after Prof. Markus Große-Ophoff of DBU, Mark Gieseke and Prof. Dr. Prof. Dr. Heiko Meinen of Hochschule Osnabrück had kicked it off. The speakers highlighted roads and paved surfaces as very important but often overlooked lever for CO2 savings. Next to buildings they make up a large share of the built environment and cause corresponding CO2 emissions during construction and repair.

There were excellent presentations on decarbonization e.g. of bitumen and concrete by B2SQUARE and CarStorCon® Technologies. Stephan Harnischfeger of MHI Baustoff GmbH explained the challenges around asphalt emissions and low-temperature asphalt products as important solutions. ecopals, ecoLocked, HeideHanf and Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung also gave presentations. Furthermore, there were keynotes by Dr. Martins Zaumanis of EMPA and Prof. Dr. Hans-Hermann Weßelborg of FH Münster.

Aerogels also play a role for CO2-optimized construction in this field and are already being investigated for more thermal-resistant roads and paved surfaces. One example are our US colleagues from aerogel Coating Technologies (aCT Inc.).

Great discussions in the networking sessions rounded off the event. As former DBU Green Startup, we were certainly happy and thankful to have this opportunity to be back at DBU. Thank you very much to the organizers for inviting us.

Discussion round at CO2-optimiertes Bauen von Verkehrsflächen & Straßen

New team member Eduard Siemens

We are very happy to share that the aerogel-it team has grown: As of January 2025, Eduard Siemens joined our team as new team member and Sales Director.

In addition to being a Sales expert, Eduard is an experienced founder himself. He built a highly successful 3D-printing company, EWOQE, from scratch. With his business running stably, he was looking for new challenges to pursue and found our work and mission. He was intrigued by our aerogel materials and potential they offer. Because of that, he contacted us to see if we could work together – which we immediately accepted.

It goes without saying that his founders experience and Sales skills are invaluable to us. In his first two months, Eduard has already managed to open up lots of exciting opportunities. We are honored to have him on the team!

aerogel-it participates in BIOVIPWALL project

The aerogel-it team is very happy to be part of the BIOVIPWALL open call project funded by iClimabuilt, an EC Horizon Europe project.

Prefab sandwich wall elements are interesting for both new construction as well as for serial renovation of existing buildings as they can be mass-produced in factories. This enables leveraging standardization and automatization for higher efficiency compared to local construction on the construction site.

But currently, almost exclusively steel-reinforced concrete is used which requires minimum thickness to protect the steel reinforcement from corrosion and structural failure over time. The additional concrete for protection of the steel reinforcement leads to additional CO2 emissions during production and transportation.

When using carbon-reinforced concrete (carbon concrete) instead of conventional steel-reinforced concrete, the carbon reinforcement no longer needs to be protected against corrosion. Therefore, the concrete layer can be reduced in thickness which saves material and transport cost, reducing CO2 footprint and reducing CO2 emissions for transportation. Thinner carbon concrete elements also save valuable space in buildings.

Then thermal insulation is required for the envelope, and vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) are the highest-performing thermal insulation materials. When combined with VIPs, carbon concrete wall construction gives access to slimmest wall designs: The overall wall thickness can be reduced from ca. 40 cm to ca. 20 cm or less – or by 50% or more!

Within the BIOVIPWALL project, together with our partner va-Q-tec and the iClimabuilt service providers we will develop and test a new prefab sandwich wall system based on carbon concrete in combination with bioaerogel VIPs such as our cellulose bioaerogel. We will prepare various materials and sandwich elements for test campaigns by iClimabuilt members as well as for demonstration purposes including integration and monitoring in a building. Based on our own calculations, we expect that a substantial CO2 footprint reduction is possible. Stay tuned!

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