Surface Engineering

The AMANECO project is investigating a process to reduce roughness on aircraft heat exchangers, whose complex geometry is not accessible via mechanical methods.

The aeronautical industry has always been defined by its high-quality standards, as one of the sectors that has been most committed to the possibilities offered by additive manufacturing (AM), solving challenges that traditional methods could not cover.

In this sense, the AMANECO project is developing AM heat exchangers, opening up a new horizon of possibilities in terms of shape, weight and efficiency, making it possible to reduce aircraft costs as well as their consumption.

The geometrical complexity of the exchangers and their difficult accessibility in certain areas of the part means that, once manufactured, it is not feasible to reduce their surface roughness via mechanical polishing processes or electrochemical methods. To overcome this difficulty, CIDETEC Surface Engineering is developing a chemical post-processing method for surface improvement, valid for parts with internal channels and thin walls manufactured by AM.

The project, coordinated by Lortek, is part of the Clean Sky 2 framework and has been conceived under the supervision of the company SAFRAN, and is expected to be completed in 2022.

The I-climabuilt project will develop materials and technical systems for building envelopes that will bring us closer to the goal of near-zero emissions.

 

CIDETEC Surface Engineering participates in I-climabuilt, a project with more than €16m allocated to laying the foundations to meet the EU’s energy efficiency targets for buildings: according to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), all new buildings must reach near-zero energy consumption levels from 2020 onwards. In other words, their energy needs must be very low and must be met mainly by renewable energy sources. Today, these buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of all energy consumption and 36% of CO₂ emissions in Europe.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for a profound market transformation through the deployment of new and more efficient technologies and materials in the building sector that support the implementation of near-zero energy and emission buildings. The I-climabuilt project will work to overcome the obstacles that have prevented adequate levels of efficiency being achieved, bringing together all parts of the chain involved, from the manufacture and testing of materials and technical systems to the development of components, taking into consideration the economic and financial factors that, in turn, define and control social acceptability, particularly, of building envelope solutions.

Precisely, the main objective of CIDETEC Surface Engineering is to provide high quality and lower cost omniphobic materials on a pilot scale for implementation and validation in building envelope components. In addition, CIDETEC will optimise the capacity of its existing omniphobic coatings pilot plant to accelerate the acceptance of the materials and their ability to contribute to the “I-climabuilt” ecosystem in future pilot installations.

The ultimate goal of the I-climabuilt project is to create a business environment that will facilitate the connection between suppliers and users, facilitating the entry of new technological solutions into the next round of innovations in materials and technical building envelope systems.

I-climabuilt encompasses a strong consortium of 16 leading research centres and eleven SMEs with complementary profiles and high expertise.

UNLOCK project, coordinated by CIDETEC Surface Engineering, work to transform waste from the poultry industry into bio-based products for agricultural applications.

 

The European poultry sector generates 3.6 million tonnes of waste feathers each year, of which only around 25% are collected separately and valorised for feather meal and fertiliser applications. A new European funded collaborative project – UNLOCK – was launched on 1 May to generate new value from a waste stream that contains nearly 90% keratin, a valuable protein that can be a source for biodegradable materials.

“In line with the EU Bioeconomy Strategy, the UNLOCK project will valorise chicken feathers to manufacture high-added value bio-based products for agricultural applications. Our solution will reduce this waste generated by the poultry sector while also substituting fossil-based materials currently used in agriculture by renewable ones.” – highlights Sarah Montes from CIDETEC Foundation, coordinator of UNLOCK.

In the course of the four-year project, funded by the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU), UNLOCK’s partners will design economically and environmentally sustainable innovative value chains to create a feather-based bioeconomy. Four different processes will valorise the feathers: from mechanical treatment to steam explosion, microbial fermentation or chemical hydrolysis, depending on the type of end products desired.

The bio-based products generated will be tailored to the needs of the agriculture sector, with the creation of seed trays, nonwoven geotextiles, mulch films and hydroponic foams. Furthermore, the keratin contained in those innovative materials will bring additional environmental benefits at the end of the product’s life: keratin-based materials are targeted to be zero waste and allow for controlled biodegradability, while also enriching soils with organic nitrogen.

To start working on this challenging but promising initiative, the 15 European partners held an online kick-off meeting on 28 April. This made clear the strength of UNLOCK’s well-balanced consortium, that covers the whole value-chain, from feedstock and supply chain analysis to equipment, processes, end-product fabrication and sustainability assessments.

The journey to transform traditional poultry systems to circular, sustainable ones may just have started, but by the end of the project two first-of-a-kind commercial biorefineries will be established.

Building on the success of the KaRMA2020 project, UNLOCK aims to make further strides toward a more sustainable European agricultural sector.

The UNLOCK project has received funding of €5 million from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement nº 101023306. It officially started on 1 May 2021 and will run until April 2025.