First strategy team meeting Q1 2026

What happens when two outstanding minds join a team that is already moving at full speed?

At the start of 2026, we got to find out.

In January, we were very happy to welcome Finn and Erik to our R&D team. Since then, they’ve been doing fantastic work alongside Alberto—pushing our already high R&D velocity to new and unexpected levels, and delivering important results for our next-generation aerogel materials such as the biomineral silica aerogel and the cellulose bioaerogel as well as our process technology.

Of course, growth also brings complexity. Keeping everyone aligned and connected becomes more important than ever. That’s why we introduced quarterly in-person strategy team meetings (with dinner included) to stay in sync.

This week marked our first session at the end of Q1. Marc and Dirk shared updates on company strategy and direction, while the team contributed plenty of new ideas and fine-tuned ongoing workstreams. The verdict: a clear success—and definitely something we will continue.

We wrapped up the day with an excellent dinner at 60s to Napoli downstairs—before catching the train back to Osnabrück (almost on time, which felt like a bonus).

A big thank you to Dr. Lutz Drallé and the team at LUPP + PARTNER for hosting us in their Hamburg office and taking such great care of us.

Team dinner at 60s to Napoli HH Q1 2026
Team dinner at 60s to Napoli HH Q1 2026
Strategy meeting Q1 2026 in HH
Strategy meeting Q1 2026 in HH
Finn and Alberto at 60s to Napoli
Finn and Alberto at 60s to Napoli

Talk on Aerogel Materials at Hochschule Osnabrück

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Recently, Dirk had the opportunity to give a talk on aerogel materials at Hochschule Osnabrück. This talk was part of the lecture series “Materials in Future Technologies” by Prof. Dr. Markus Susoff and Prof. Dr. Svea Petersen. 👩‍🎓👨‍🎓

It doesn’t happen often that the team can step out of the day-to-day work to talk about what we do. And it was a real pleasure for Dirk to take this time to share with a group of master students what makes aerogels such a fascinating class of materials.

The focus of this session which also included polymer foams and other materials was energy efficiency. This is a field that aerogels as excellent thermal insulators feel right at home in. From heat shields for electric vehicle batteries to energy-efficient building renovation, aerogels are already enabling real-world solutions. But beyond that there is much more – including completely new applications and aerogel materials such as biomineral silica aerogels and bioaerogels that we as aerogel-it are working on.

What stood out most, though, was the reminder of how fortunate we as aerogel-it are: working every day on such an advanced technology we truly believe in. And pushing the boundaries every day with the great team that we as a company have grown into. Our passion for aerogels has kept us going for more than a decade. And there is still so much to explore and value to create.

Looking forward to what the next decades will bring!

Dirk and master students at Hochschule Osnabrück
Dirk and master students at Hochschule Osnabrück
Prof. Dr. Markus Susoff and master students at Hochschule Osnabrück
Prof. Dr. Markus Susoff and master students at Hochschule Osnabrück

Start of C-Factory Project

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Start of the C-Factory project – a major milestone for climate-friendly construction!

C-Factory is designed to become the worldwide first carbon concrete plant for CO2-storing prefab components, backed by around EUR 14 million in funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and running through the end of 2029.

The project builds on two decades of research and practical testing, including the Carbon Concrete CUBE at Technische Universität Dresden, the worldwide first building made of carbon concrete.

A long-standing collaboration

As aerogel-it, we are especially proud of our long-standing collaboration with Kahnt & Tietze GmbH who are spearheading this effort (in the photo below with Saxonian State Minister Dirk Panter). For many years, we have worked together with them to minimize wall thickness through the combination of space-saving carbon concrete and aerogel high-performance thermal insulation e.g. SLENTITE and silica aerogel blankets in the Carbon Concrete CUBE, and in several public funded projects such as BIOVIPWALL. This powerful combination helps create slimmer, lighter and more durable building envelopes with lower material use, lower transport and installation effort, and improved lifecycle performance.

What it means for sustainable construction


What makes C-Factory so exciting is its potential to take sustainable construction another decisive step forward:

1️⃣ Carbon concrete already enables significant savings in cement, sand and gravel because carbon reinforcement does not corrode and allows much slimmer components.
2️⃣ In combination with CO2-mineralized aggregates and additional CO2-storing materials, future components are intended to become carbon stores themselves.
3️⃣ Paired with aerogel high-performance insulation, this approach unlocks even greater potential to drastically reduce wall thickness while maximizing usable space and energy efficiency.

Congratulations to Alexander Kahnt, Matthias Tietze and the entire team, as well as the partners from TU Dresden, HTWK Leipzig and the wider C3 ecosystem, on bringing a technology from research and pilot projects into industrial reality!

We are excited to see the impact C-Factory will have on resource efficiency, climate protection and the future of construction!

Kahnt & Tietze with Saxonian Minister of State Dirk Panter
Kahnt & Tietze with Saxonian Minister of State Dirk Panter (photo Stefan Gröschel)