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  • The Fascination of Materials: Innovation for a Sustainable Future / 2024

    Sustainable Material Design as Response to Resource Bottlenecks

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / May 22, 2024

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    Finding solutions to potential resource bottlenecks requires sustainable material design. New material compositions enable more environmentally friendly ship propulsion systems, more economical aircraft engines or even lighter electric vehicles. At Fraunhofer IWS, the Competence Field Materials Characterization and Testing led by Prof. Martina Zimmermann is developing the “recipes“ for tomorrow‘s materials. The unique feature: Here, new alloys can be generated and analyzed directly using additive manufacturing methods. The 3D printers at the institute allow the newly developed recipes to be tested long before they are used in industry.

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  • Joint Project “H2GO” Aims to Revolutionize Production of Mobile Fuel Cells / 2024

    Carbon instead of Gold: On the Road to Zero Emission Heavy Duty Vehicles

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / April 30, 2024

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    Powerful mobile fuel cells can help to reduce the environmental impact of heavy duty transportation in Germany and worldwide in the future. 19 Fraunhofer Institutes from nine German states have therefore joined forces to form the development alliance “H2GO – National Fuel Cell Production Action Plan”. They aim to jointly develop industrial technologies to produce fuel cells and efficiently transfer new processes to industry. The focus is on fuel cells for road-based heavy duty vehicles. The Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport Affairs is funding H2GO with around 80 million euros from the “Future Fund for the Automotive Industry“ until the end of 2025. The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS is also part of this consortium. Dr. Teja Roch oversees the “HP2BPP” sub-project at Fraunhofer IWS, located in Dresden and Dortmund. In this interview, he explains the innovative contributions.

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  • Lasers Play Crucial Role in Dismantling Destroyed Nuclear Infrastructure / 2024

    “The Need for Solutions Is Enormous”

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / April 09, 2024

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    A dark chapter in human history unfolded in Chornobyl on April 26, 1986, when Block 4 of the nuclear power plant exploded, resulting in a meltdown. This tragic incident transformed the immediate surroundings into an uninhabitable landscape and impacted the environment and the health of the population in the long term. Decades later, humanity faces the urgent challenge of dismantling the damaged power plant. Researchers at Fraunhofer IWS in Dresden, who are tackling this complex task, recognize this necessity. Scientists of the Cutting and Joining Technology Field members work on a laser-based, remote-oper-ated dismantling process for contaminated material mixtures. In this interview, Dr. Andreas Wetzig and Dr. Jan Hauptmann provide insights into the background to this ambitious task.

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  • Strengthening the German Academy of Science and Engineering / 2024

    Andrés Fabián Lasagni Is a New Member of acatech

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / April 03, 2024

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    The laser expert Prof. Andrés Lasagni was elected as a new member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), during the last General Assembly.

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  • Fraunhofer IWS: New Insights Gained for the Use of Digital Lab Notebooks / 2024

    “DiWan” Shows the Way to a Digital Materials Expert

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / February 06, 2024

    Digitalization is changing the job profile of materials testers. One critical criterion is to provide teams with sufficient training on new digital lab books. This shall secure expertise for companies and institutes in the long term. The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS in Dresden and its partners have gained these and other insights from the now-completed project “DiWan: Digital change in materials testing.” The Dresden institutes incorporate those into their further activities in the digital transformation context of materials science and engineering.

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  • Fraunhofer IWS and Partners Aim to Develop a Measurement System for Fast and Reliable Methane Detection / 2023

    Precise Mobile Tracking for Emission Reduction

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / May 24, 2023

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    The European Union has set itself the goal of better recording and further reducing methane emissions in the agricultural, waste, and energy sectors. In this context, the Fraunhofer Application Center for Optical Metrology and Surface Technologies AZOM, “Micro-Hybrid Electronic” and “fiberware” launched a research project for waveguide-based trace gas analysis of methane under the coordination of “DBI – Gas- und Umwelttechnik”. The aim is to develop a mobile compact handheld device that can determine methane emissions with a precision not previously possible. The project is being funded over three years as part of the BMBF's “KMU-innovativ: Ressourceneffizienz und Klimaschutz” (SME Innovative: Resource Efficiency and Climate Protection) funding measure (HLSG-CH4 for short).

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  • SNEAK PEEK: First insights in the not-yet-published Annual Report 2022/2023 / 2023

    New Storage Solutions for the Energy Transition

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / April 05, 2023

    © Siegfried Michael Wagner/Fraunhofer IWS

    Germany has rediscovered the battery as a key technology – especially since realizing that many major German automotive manufacturers will take phase out internal combustion engines and focus to a large extent on battery-electric powered concepts. A race to catch up has been underway ever since in order to make up for the recently obvious capacity and technology lead of Asian and U.S. corporations.

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  • SNEAK PEEK: First insights in the not-yet-published Annual Report 2022/2023 / 2023

    Cutting-edge Research for a Strong Hydrogen Economy

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / March 27, 2023

    © Fraunhofer IWS

    If a shift away from fossil fuels and toward environmentally friendly alternatives is to succeed, Europe needs to boost hydrogen technologies. Ecologically produced “green“ hydrogen qualifies as an emission-free and quickly refuelable energy carrier, but is also needed as a basic material in the chemical industry and many other branches of industry.

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  • Fraunhofer IWS Simulates Coating Processes for Material- and Time-saving as well as more Load-oriented Wear Protection Coatings / 2023

    More Efficient Coating Processes thanks to Simulation

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / February 22, 2023

    © Fraunhofer IWS

    Components subject to heavy loads in aviation, such as compressors, are usually provided with wear-resistant coatings. This is intended to enable them to withstand the adverse requirements of their use over the long term. Typically, the Arc-PVD process is used for such protective coatings, in which a starting material, usually a nitride hard material, is vaporized in a high vacuum by means of an electric arc and applied to the component to be coated.

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  • One Year Start-up: Focus on Fusion Bionic / 2022

    Successful Change of Perspective

    News – Fraunhofer IWS Dresden / December 13, 2022

    © Fraunhofer IWS

    In 2021, scientists Dr. Tim Kunze, Dr. Sabri Alamri and Benjamin Krupop spun off from Fraunhofer IWS as ”Fusion Bionic”. Together with economist Laura Kunze the young start-up has mastered the first challenges and hurdles. In this interview, Dr. Tim Kunze, CEO of Fusion Bionic, as well as Prof. Christoph Leyens, Executive Director, and Dr. Christoph Zwahr, Group Leader at Fraunhofer IWS, look back on the early days and venture an outlook on the future cooperation.

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