As an innovative company we work - partly together with partners - on pioneering and groundbreaking projects for the further development of the use of carbon as well as new applications. Some of these projects are supported by regional or state programs. The list below shows the largest of our promoted projects.
Our EU promoted projects at a glance
Description
Project title: MULTICOMPOSITE - Development of Small Tow Carbon Fibers and Composites for Applications in the Automotive and Industrial Sectors
Reference: 033975
Portugal 2020 Call: 04/SI /2017: SI I&DT (Funding System for Innovation and Technological Development), Demonstration Projects in Co-Promotion
Funding program: Lisbon Regional Operational Programme
Project duration: 18 months (April 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019).
Objective
MULTICOMPOSITE project targets demonstrating the industrial viability of the usage of Portuguese carbon fibers and precursors for applications in the automotive sector and other industrial applications (wind energy blades, pressure vessels, medical prosthesis, civil construction applications, etc.).
In the scope of the project, fibers with similar number of filaments per tow as conventional small tow carbon fibers and cost and mechanical performance similar to conventional large tow carbon fibres will be developed as a novel cost-effective route to improve the isotropy in carbon fibre reinforced composites. It is intended to suit the properties of the novel small tow carbon fibers to the proposed applications and maximize their compatibility with the selected matrix.
The technical implementation of the project involves the following steps: optimization of precursors and their conversion in small tow carbon fibers at pilot scale and also the design, production and testing of relevant demonstrator components for the automotive and industrial sectors. These prototypes will demonstrate both the good performance of SGL Carbon's innovative fibers and the novel composite materials production technology implemented by OPTIMAL.
Description
Project title: ACRYFLAME - Development of novel flame retardant acrylic fibers
Reference: 024322
Portugal 2020 Call: 16/SI/2016: SI I&DT (Funding System for Innovation and Technological Development), Individual Projects
Funding program: Lisbon Regional Operational Programme
Project duration: 2 years (from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019)
Objective
The project aims to develop flame retardant acrylic fibers for textile clothing, upholstery, home and vehicles (planes, boats, trains, etc.) textiles and artificial hair.
Three research paths will be exploited:
- Use of monomers or polymerization additives to obtain flame retardant polymers
- Incorporation of flame retardant additives in the polymer dope and/or along spinning (e.g., nanoclays, organic phosphorus substances and oxidized fibers waste)
- Partial thermal oxidation of acrylic fibers on the fiber surface, making it flame retardant and preserving suitable mechanical properties in the inner core to allow textile processing
As a case study the project targets the development of artificial human hair.
Description
Project title: Integration of Novel Stack Components for Performance, Improved DuRability and LowEr Cost (INSPIRE)
Reference: 700127
Funding topic: EU Horizon 2020
Project duration: 3 years (November 1, 2016 to October 31, 2019)
Context
Most of the world’s leading vehicle manufacturers now have significant hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle (FCV) development programmes, and the general public in many parts of the world, including Europe, United States, Japan and Korea can now enjoy high performance, emissions-free driving from FCVs delivered by the likes of Hyundai, Toyota and Honda. However, FCV deployment in this first wave of commercialisation will likely be counted in levels of 10’s of thousands for the next few years until the early 2020s. Greatly accelerated growth in the market for FCVs to a noticeable level of penetration of the overall vehicle market is projected to occur from 2025 onwards. Critical to these projections is the implementation of the next generation of improved fuel cell technology and manufacturing processes to further improve performance over the fuel cell engine lifetime and reduce cost - down towards the headline target for the fuel cell stack of €50/kW.
Project INSPIRE is charged with the development, manufacturing and implementation of new stack component technology, including catalysts, membranes, gas diffusion layers and metallic bipolar plates, that can meet this challenging stack cost target. As such INSPIRE will be a significant enabler for FCV market growth from the early 2020s.
Description
Project title: MIcrobial DESalination (MIDES)
Reference: 685793
Funding topic: EU Horizon 2020
Project duration: 4 years (April 1, 2016 to März 31, 2020)
Objective
The MIDES project aims to revolutionise desalination by developing a sustainable low-energy process of producing safe drinking water, using Microbial Desalination Cells (MDC) as a pretreatment for reverse osmosis (RO).
The need for innovation
As global shortages of fresh water are a growing challenge for societies, desalination is a key option to significantly increase water resources for drinking, industrial use and irrigation. All current desalination technologies require significant electrical or thermal energy, with current (RO) desalination units consuming electric energy of at least 3 kWh/m3.
To overcome thermodynamical limitations of RO, Microbial Desalination Cells (MDC) concurrently treat wastewater and generate energy to achieve desalination. MDCs can produce around 1.8 kWh of bioelectricity from the handling of 1 cubic metre of wastewater. Such energy can be directly used to completely remove the salt content in seawater without external energy input, or to partially reduce the salinity to lower substantially the amount of energy to complete desalination.
The project will focus on overcoming the current limitations of MDC technology such as low desalination rate, high manufacturing cost, biofouling and scaling problems on membranes, optimization of the microbial-electrochemical process, system scaling up and economic feasibility of the technology.
Please read more on the contribution of carbon fibers in the project in our story "Anything but ordinary"
Description
Project title: SIlicon nanopaRticles based composItes UpScaling:
Funding topic: EU Horizon 2020
Project duration: 3.5 years (April 1, 2016 to September 30, 2019)
Objective
The goal of the SiRIUS project is to develop high capacity silicon–carbon composites anodes for lithium ion batteries targeting high energy density applications (> 300 Wh/kg & > 700 Wh/L) and intermediate cycle life (> 500 cycles) to meet requirements of portable electronics and automotive markets. The high energy density requirements give the following specifications at the material level:
- Specific capacity: 1000 mAh/g
- Capacity retention: 70% @ 500 cycles
- Initial irreversible capacity: < 15%
We are at your disposal for questions at any time: