Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology UMSICHT

Analytics Laboratory; Biotechnology Laboratory; Physics Laboratory, High Pressure Laboratory; Energy Storage Laboratory; Catalysis Laboratory¸ Chemical Laboratory

Business Unit Polymer Materials

• Material development (focus on bio-based plastics)
• Product and process development, manufacturing processes
• Product design, CAD design, and sample production
• Surface modification and surface structuring
• Foaming of plastics
• Component and system development
• Coating development
• Studies and consultation
• Multiphysics simulations of components and products
• Technical and economic feasibility studies
• Sustainability assessments
• Analytics, chemistry, biology, environmental analysis
• Determination of the biodegradability of materials and products

Business Unit Chemistry

• Synthesis routes from fossil and biogenic raw materials and residues including consulting regarding the sustainable shift in raw materials
• Optimization of process chains through integration of biotechnological and (thermo-/electro-)chemical-catalytic process steps
• Development and optimization of scalable processes including upstream and downstream processing
• Product development and formulation as well as production scale-up
• Development and screening of catalysts all the way up
• to kg scale
• Optimization of bioconversion steps with conversion of material by microorganisms, enzymes, or enzyme systems
• Development, sizing, operation, provision as well as optimizations of laboratory and technical shop systems with capacities of up to 20 kg product per week
• Analytics service: analyses in accordance with standard processes, special analytics, development of methods
• Technological consulting: sustainability assessments, economic feasibility analyses, concept studies all the way to basic engineering, studies regarding the potential of utilizing alternative raw materials and residues, topic and trend scouting, strategic concepts for action, innovation road-maps

Business Unit Environment

• Sustainability and resource strategies for business and politics
• Analysis of complex energy and raw materials supply sys-tems (systems analysis) in order to support business policy/political decisions
• State-specific, industry-specific and company-specific strategies and concepts for the supply with primary and secondary raw materials
• Concepts, processes, and products for
  • Recycling, utilization of residues
  • Recovery and generation of reusable materials and critical raw m aterials
  • Removal of pollutants and recovery of reusable materials from (waste)water
  • Removal of pollutants from waste gases
• Development, engineering, erection, and operation of plants and technologies for recycling, (waste) water treatment, and reduction of emissions at various orders of scale (testing plants, demonstration plants, industrial scale implementation)
• Scientific-technical support in the implementation of new technologies in practice
• Economic feasibility studies for processes, methods, and products
• Preparation of eco-assessments and sustainability assess-ments in accordance with DIN EN ISO 14040/14044 for products, processes and services
• Customer-tailored safety and hazardous material manage-ment software
• Analytics services with problem-oriented assessment and action recommendations
• Stakeholder and dialog processes

Business Unit Biomass

• Concept and system development for the provision of raw materials and energy from biogenic raw materials and residues, including process development, component development, and plant development – even by means of storable, carbon-rich intermediate products
• Concepts, construction, operation, and optimization of laboratory systems, technical shop systems and demonstra-tion plants, including trace gas analytics
• Development of methods for reduction of emissions,
• flue gas purification
• Catalyst and bioprocess development
• Digitization technologies for the agricultural sector
• Development of concepts and technical systems for   nutrient management and for nutrient recovery
• (e. g. nitrate,  phosphate) including (sustainability)
• assessments; treatment of fermentation residues
• Strategy development and techno consulting

Business Unit Energy

Energy system analysis and design

• In municipal, regional, and industrial structures: energy concepts, optimization, implementation of energy storage systems, implementation of cross energy technologies, modelling of energy load balancing technologies
• Optimized sizing and mode of operation of energy genera-tion and storage systems in future electricity markets
• Municipal storage systems, energy-efficient municipal build-ings, energy load balancing requirements, residual loads
• (analysis and optimization) in complex energy supply systems (e. g. hospitals)

Technical development

• Thermal, electrical, and chemical energy storage technolo-gies: redox flow-batteries, compressed air energy storage systems, phase change materials and slurries
• Cross-energy technologies: power-to-gas, power-to-chemicals
• Catalytic-processes, low temperature plasma processes
• Customer-specific, innovative, large-scale, flexible, weldable bipolar plates
• Pilot plant construction, electricity generation from waste heat, combined energy generation, innovative chillers,
• use of geothermal energy
• New turbomachinery, small steam turbines, turbomachinery test bench

Studies, consulting

• Strategy and scenario development, meta studies
• Conception, customer-specific calculation, economic fea-sibility studies, design, planning and integration of energy systems and/or preparation and assessment of technical concepts
• Energy storage systems, use of storage systems, electricity from waste heat, power-to-X, decentralized bio energy
• (conversion) processes
• Improving the flexibility of CHP systems, heat demand forecasts
• Management of decentralized energy systems within the network
• New resources in steam and compressed air networks