Inno.CNT Annual Conference 2012

Inno.CNT makes high-tech expertise on carbon nanotube materials accessible to a wider audience

Düsseldorf/Bayreuth, 1 February 2012. The fourth annual Inno.CNT conference, held in the Bayreuth Civic Center from 30 January to 1 February, focused on presenting the results from the past four years of projects in the field of carbon nanotubes, making them accessible to small and medium-sized companies and creating long-term structures for further activities. Two hundred and eighty renowned CNT experts discussed the potentials of carbon nanotube materials as an innovative factor in numerous sectors and presented their results both in specialist lectures and posters as well as application models. Furthermore, a practical workshop offered small and medium-sized companies insights into the possibilities of these innovative materials.

The application models on exhibition demonstrated impressively just how far the work in this comparatively new technological field has already advanced: Explaining one of the numerous exhibits, Dr. Walter Schütz from FutureCarbon GmbH, which hosted this year’s conference, commented, “This car door has a CNT-modified inner panel. The high thermal conductivity of the carbon nanotubes enables the panel to be used as panel heating.” Other exhibits included a nanotube-reinforced bridge component and part of a supporting structure for airplanes.

Lowering entry barriers for interested companies
“Carbon nanotubes are so versatile that innumerable industries can benefit from this high-tech material,” said Dr. Péter Krüger of Bayer MaterialScience and head of the Innovation Alliance CNT, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. “In order to make the knowledge and expertise regarding the manufacture, modification, dispersion, further processing and characterization of carbon nanotube materials gained by Inno.CNT available to a large circle of users, the NanoCarbonCenter will soon be founded by some Inno.CNT partners. The risks of investment decisions and thus the entry barriers to using this new class of materials will be significantly reduced for interested companies.

Addressing innovation issues in a timely manner
The event also made clear that the need for research and development in the field of carbon nanotube materials is by no means exhausted. “There are important issues we want to address in the near future. These include the continuation of the accompanying safety research as well as the expansion of the content of our research activities to additional carbon nanotube materials such as graphene. We want to set the guidelines in these areas at this year’s conference as well,” stated Dr. Krüger.

Further information is available at
http://www.inno-cnt.de/jahreskongress2012/index_en.php

About Inno.CNT (Innovation Alliance Carbon Nanotubes)
This initiative is a research network consisting of more than 90 specialized small and mid-sized enterprises, large industrial conglomerates, scientific institutes and numerous universities. Its goal is to develop fundamental technologies and applications for carbon nanotubes (CNT). In 27 tightly linked projects, the members of the initiative focus on practical applications of CNT in the fields of energy, the environment, mobility, lightweight construction and electronics. The alliance is part of the high-tech strategy of the German Federal Government and has been sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of its WING program (Materials Innovations for Industry and Society) since 2008.