Press releases

The electrolyser producer Enapter has set itself the goal of developing its entire production process to run without negative impacts on the environment. As an important step on this journey, it is building the Enapter Campus production facility, which will be powered entirely from renewable energy produced on-site and in the neighbouring Bioenergiepark. The site in in Saerbeck, North Rhine-Westphalia combines electrolyser production, an R&D building, administration and office space, as well as a cantine over 82,000 square metres. Now the company wants to investigate what other measures can be implemented to achieve its “Life Cycle Impact Zero” aspirations – together with researchers from Fraunhofer UMSICHT, the Wuppertal Institute and the Institute of Sustainable Nutrition (iSuN) of FH Münster.

On March 7 and 8, 2023, the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT, CLIB – Industrial Biotechnology Cluster and 3N Kompetenzzentrum e. V. will organize the congress "BIO-raffiniert XII" in Oberhausen with the topic "From fossil to the future – with bioeconomy and biotechnology". The twelfth event of the congress series thus spans the arc from today's predominantly fossil raw material supply to biobased concepts of the future. See the program structure of the congress and apply for a presentation (or just save the date)!

From component development for electrolysis and fuel cells to the creation of concepts for storage and transport to the implementation of cross-sector approaches: Researchers at Fraunhofer UMSICHT provide solutions for the use of hydrogen from a single source. Anyone who would like to gain insights into the competencies and services of the institute is cordially invited to visit the state community stand.

For plastic waste to be reduced and a circular economy to function, reusable systems are essential. Researchers from Fraunhofer UMSICHT and Fraunhofer IML, who collaborate in the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Circular Plastics Economy CCPE, have compared three plastic-based reusable systems with their single-use alternatives for the Stiftung Initiative Mehrweg (SIM). The result: reusable is superior to single-use in 14 of the 17 categories studied and offers great potential for the success of a circular economy. What is missing are clear political framework conditions and the implementation of the existing waste hierarchy, which actually prioritizes reusables.

For the 3^rd time in a row, Fraunhofer UMSICHT invites to the "Electrochemical Cell Concepts Colloquium – E3C": On May 19, scientists from Europe, Australia and America will come together virtually to discuss special designs and modifications of flow and non-flow reactors. The focus will be on CO₂ conversion and capture, 3D printed electrodes as well as innovative cell und stack concepts.

In the EU-funded project BioMates, the overall production process is now established and running on a validation scale. After producing 1000 kilograms of bio-oil in a test facility for the first time last year, this was another important step for achieving the project’s goal to establish a procedure to process sustainable raw materials instead of crude oil on large scale in refineries.

Reducing CO₂ in our atmosphere electrochemically and using it as a basis for chemical products – this is the goal of numerous projects in industry and research. The focus is no longer on developing new catalysts and electrodes, but on scalability and optimization of existing electrolytic systems. Scientists from Fraunhofer UMSICHT, Ruhr-Universität Bochum and RWTH Aachen took a closer look at one of these systems – the so-called zero-gap electrolyzer. Result: They were able to improve both the stability of the electrolyzer and the faraday efficiency for the CO produced over a longer period of time.

Rock Tech Lithium announced to collaborate with the Fraunhofer UMSICHT and supply chain tracking provider Circulor. The German-Canadian company, which plans to supply lithium hydroxide to manufacturers of batteries for electric cars from 2024, recently published plans for the first European lithium hydroxide factory (“Converter”) in Brandenburg. The Converter aims to become the first in the industry to achieve CO₂ neutrality and a closed material cycle for both lithium and valuable by-products.

Methanol is one of the world's most important compounds and is used, among other things, as a basic chemical or fuel. Its production is still mainly based on fossil raw materials such as natural gas or coal. In view of climate change, sustainable alternatives must be developed. Fraunhofer UMSICHT is working on the extraction of methanol from steel mill gases and sustainably produced hydrogen in the Carbon2Chem® project. The researchers are already successfully operating a demonstration-scale plant on the institute's premises in Oberhausen. In the next step, tests under real conditions are planned at a steel mill in Duisburg.

At today’s conclusion of the 5th UNEA Conference in Nairobi, which adopted a resolution to start negotiations for an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution, the Roundtable on Marine Litter (RTM) is calling for a swift reduction of inputs of microplastics to the North Sea/Baltic Sea. In a new issues paper published under the coordination of Fraunhofer UMSICHT, the Roundtable illustrates many possibilities of reducing microplastics input to the marine environment. These include reducing tyre abrasion, developing/prewashing textiles with lower release, introducing more stringent requirements of insulation materials on construction sites. Marine plastic pollution is one of the most urgent problems facing the North and Baltic Seas. It has been traced in all areas of Germany’s seas and may be reprotoxic and impair the vitality of marine organisms and of those at the bottom of the marine food chain in particular. The reports says the full extent of the plastic pollution and its impact cannot be determined due to inadequate research and analytical methods.