Archive for category: News

Das Team von aerogel-it freut sich riesig und ist sehr dankbar für diese Anerkennung der harten Arbeit rund um grüne Superwärmedämmung für Energiewende und Decarbonisierung. Dazu gehören hochdämmende Aerogele auf Basis von Lignin, einem Nebenstrom aus der Holz- und Papierindustrie.

Marc und Dirk durften den Preis von Umweltminister Christian Meyer entgegennehmen. Die gemeinsame Preisverleihung im Deutschen Theater Göttingen mit dem Innovationspreis der Region Göttingen und der WRG Wirtschaftsförderung Region Göttingen GmbH zeigte eindrucksvoll das Innovationspotential mit vielenden spannenden Beiträgen aus der Region, aus Niedersachsen und dem Bundesgebiet.

Das Team von aerogel-it dankt den Veranstaltern und Organisatoren herzlich für die tolle Veranstaltung!

Zudem dankt das Team allen seinen Partnern und Unterstützern, die entscheidend zu diesem Erfolg beigetragen haben!

Mehr Informationen und Link zu einem kurzen Video hier.

If you are interested to learn more about our new bio-based aerogel materials for various fields such as bio-based thermal superinsulation, carrier materials and rheology modifiers, come visit us at the The Greener Manufacturing Show in Cologne on 8-9 Nov 2023.

aerogel-it has a stand, where Marc and Dirk are looking forward to meeting you. Marc will also give a talk on 8 Nov from 11:45 to 12:00.

This week Marc and Dirk participated in the finals of the Innovationspreis Niedersachsen 2023 as representatives of the aerogel-it team. The jury nominated aerogel-it for the category Vision with its 100% bio-based lignin aerogel for energy efficiency and decarbonization.

Nele Bracht and Hannes Putfarken and their colleagues of the Innovationsnetzwerk Niedersachsen excellently organized the event in the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover. The Minister of Economy, Traffic, Construction and Digital of Lower Saxony Olaf Lies, the Minister of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony Falko Mohrs, president of the Leuphana University Lüneburg Prof. Dr. Sascha Spoun and CEO of the Innovationszentrum Niedersachsen Dr. Thomas Schulmeyer gave speeches.

It was an excellent event with nine truly interesting contributions from industry and academia. It had been noticeably hard for the jury to select the winners. aerogel-it did not win the first prize. Nevertheless, the team felt honored to be among the selected few nominated companies and individuals!

Nicely, our adopted home city Osnabrück showed a strong presence with one nomination and one win: Congratulations to the team of Altosens GmbH who presented their innovative pressure sensing technology! The teams were happy to be supported on site by Thomas Serries of the WIGOS Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft Osnabrücker Land mbH, Thomas Büdden of the ICO InnovationsCentrum Osnabrück and Ingmar Bojes of the WFO Wirtschaftsförderung Osnabrück GmbH.

After the award ceremony, the organizers rounded off the event with a reception in the museum patio for

celebration and networking.

This week the aerogel-it team had the pleasure and honor of meeting IBIH CEO Dr. Yunhong Wang and Prof. Dr. Andreas Timm-Giel, president of Hamburg University of Technology, together with our longstanding collaboration partner Prof. Dr. Irina Smirnova, head of the Institute of Thermal Separation Processes at TUHH, to discuss aerogel-it and IBIH aerogel products, developments and perspectives. Specifically the electrical vehicle (EV) market was a topic.

Dr. Wang is a key member of the global aerogel industry as well as a seasoned chemical engineering expert. He spent ~20 years of his life in Europe e.g. working for Lonza before founding IBIH in China around 5 years ago. Since then IBIH has strongly grown to become one of the largest aerogel suppliers in China as well as the largest supplier of aerogel heat shields for EVs with well-known, heavyweight customers such as CATL and BYD. Fun fact: The majority of EVs in China (which are a lot) drive with aerogel heat shields produced by IBIH!

The EV market is now seen as the largest future market for aerogels (see IDTechEx article here and market study here). However, it seems that the global aerogel industry is simply not growing fast enough to meet the enormous growth predicted for the EV industry, and it is expected that aerogels will still be required for a while in EV batteries despite developments such as solid-state or LFP chemistry. Energy densities and safety requirements will keep increasing, and space-saving aerogel heat shields have already demonstrated their safety performance in real life – there was not a single fire with the EVs containing IBIH aerogel heat shields.

But importantly, IBIH alone will not be able to cover this growing gap, and especially in Europe there is a serious lack of aerogel production capacities. IBIH is pushing for a collaboration of the global aerogel industry to address this growing need. aerogel-it and TUHH are joining forces with IBIH and others to meet this challenge.

This week Mercer International celebrated the inauguration of the first lignin plant in Germany as well as the only operating lignin plant in Europe at their Rosenthal site. The opening ceremony was led by the prime minister of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, and the CEO and President of Mercer International Juan C. Bueno and excellently moderated by site manager Dr. Christian Soergel. Mercer will now operate the plant as part of their strategy towards using lignin as valuable bio-based precursor for multiple applications – beyond its current role for bioelectricity generation. It could very well turn out to be a historical moment.

Marc and Dirk were thrilled and honored to be invited to this important event as representatives of aerogel-it. The head of the new lignin center Dr. Lars Gabriel gave a tour of the lignin plant and explained the production process as well as the possible applications of lignin. As one example, Marc could show our 100% bio-based lignin aerogel as green superinsulation material for energy efficiency and decarbonization / defossilization to the participants and Ministerpräsident Ramelow. Afterwards, the Mercer team took the visitors on tours of the site, and the event was rounded off very well with an excellent barbecue and lunch for both the visitors and the site personnel.

And that was not all. On the preceding evening, Mercer hosted a dinner at in neighboring Bad Steben with participants from politics, academia, research institutions, finance institutions and industry, which Marc and Dirk were also kindly invited to. In several impulse talks Nicolas Hark of the nova-Institut GmbH, Prof. Dr. Michael Stelter of Fraunhofer IKTS, Prof. Dr. Peter Seeberger of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung and Bernt Farcke of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture underlined the urgency to act in face of the climate change but also highlighted the potential of bio-based raw materials as well as the complexities surrounding regulatory definition of terms such as decarbonization, defossilization, bioenergy with potentially drastic effects on the market. Truly challenging waters to navigate for all stakeholders in the years to come. Over dinner, the highly interesting and lively discussion continued until late at night.

A truly amazing event with perfect organization. A big thank you to the team of Mercer International!