Ceramics

At the Rath plant in Lower Austria, two new vacuum nitriding furnaces, used to produce silicon carbide plates and bricks, are now being operated with electricity. The result: CO₂ emissions are around 70 % lower.

The production of silicon carbide is energy-intensive and produces large amounts of by-products. Researchers at Fraunhofer IKTS have developed an environmentally friendly recycling process to turn these back into high-quality silicon carbide.

Fraunhofer researchers have developed an extremely heat-resistant ceramic-based ink. This enables metal components processed in the automotive industry at temperatures over 1000 °C to be marked with a code.