Catalysis plays a key role in the manufacture of chemical products. Catalytic processes will become even more important given the rising price and shortage of oil which is to be expected. One way to achieve society’s aim of reducing CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels is to convert biomass into so-called synthesis gas, which can then be converted into a number of different chemical base materials with the aid of catalytic processes. The concrete objective of this research project is the development of a new, continuous catalytic process which produces the very versatile product dimethyl ether (DME) from synthesis gas originally generated from biomass. DME can be used as fuel or as the base chemical in synthesis routes which have previously been based on oil. The catalytic process will allow single-stage direct synthesis and be able to be coupled to biomass gasification.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology
MPI für Kohlenforschung (coal research)

Duration: 2011 - 2014

The economic damage caused by corrosion amounts to approx. 20 to 25 billion euros in Germany alone. The protective measures used to date with Cr-VI compounds have been effective, but environmental protection issues mean their application is now very limited. The aim of the project is to investigate and produce intelligent corrosion protection systems which react specifically to external influences such as damage or corrosion and the subsequent change in the pH value or potential and heal themselves.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP
Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC
Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung

Duration: 2010 - 2013

Teams from the Max Planck Society and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft are jointly researching the freezing of living cells for applications in the areas of biotechnology and regenerative medicine, i.e. cryoconservation. This involves the systematic investigation of how freezing processes affect the complex biochemical processes in the cell. The cryogenic technologies are being further developed on the basis of this fundamental systems-biology-based understanding.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology

Duration: 2010 - 2013

The objective of this tandem project is to establish a European source for ultra-low-noise amplifier circuits for radio astronomy and space research. Max Planck researchers are providing the necessary competence in the field of cryogenic amplifiers, the Fraunhofer partner is contributing extensive experience in semiconductor technology for the manufacture of circuits with excellent noise characteristics at room temperature. They aim to improve and optimise the existing transistor-based switching technology with extremely high electron mobility for low temperature applications.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy

Duration: 2010 - 2013

The identification of individuals is essential for both animal conservation and in ethology. At present, evaluating the data for different species which are generated by camera traps and/or with the aid of acoustic recordings is a slow, difficult process where a lot of the work has to be done manually. This project aims to develop new software methods to recognise individuals of different species. The knowledge at Fraunhofer will be used to develop a system for object and facial recognition, for classification, and a semi-automatic system which can recognise individuals with the aid of audio-visual data. These possibilities are intended to significantly improve ethology, the determination of biodiversity and Population Monitoring. Initial work with audio-visual data has already been done. Camera traps are already being sold in large numbers by manufacturers across the globe.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT
Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Duration: 2010 - 2013

This project aims to accelerate the evaluation of audio-visual linguistic data by one order of magnitude with the help of innovative semi-automatic annotation techniques. Newly developed methods for the automatic indexing of acoustic and video-based corpora should enhance functionality in the recognition of patterns that play a role in human communication. The technology developed by the Fraunhofer institutes will promote the formation of linguistic theory and should also be made available to inter-services and media concerns in the future.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS
Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich Hertz Institute, HHI
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Duration: 2009 - 2012

The aim of this project is to develop autologous substitutes for bone and cartilage in the form of biomimetic, nanoscopically structured implants. In separate sub-projects, the basic biomaterial is combined with the cells and high-throughput microscopy is developed for the analysis. The way in which the topography of the cells and ligands are altered by photochemistry is investigated at the same time. In addition, the mechanics and force distribution, and their impacts are researched. Mathematical models for the description of molecular mechanisms, which are of interest for the cultivation of tissue, also play an important role. With regard to application, the focus is on the synthesis of particles that can incorporate biomolecules, the generation of membranes with controlled porosity and the characterisation of cellular determinants.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB
University of Stuttgart
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Stuttgart)
Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research

Duration: 2009 - 2012

This project is looking at ultra-precision metal optics which are being developed especially for space applications, but will also be used for weather and climate research as well as for the optical transmission of messages. The fundamental approach to a solution in this project consists in building athermal mirror systems based on new types of material combinations and developing active mirrors to correct wave front errors caused by temperature and environmental effects. The use of expansion-adapted aluminium-silicon alloys, combined with polishable nickel-phosphorus thick layers, makes it possible to apply deterministic polishing and correction methods and is thus necessary in order to use metal optics through to the short wavelength UV range. Linking the metal optics with microsystem actuator mirror substrates will allow compact, active systems to be used for a broad range of applications for the first time.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Duration: 2009 - 2012

The Internet has long been the indispensable backbone of our information society. The vast number of bandwidth-intensive applications such as “triple play”, i.e. voice, data and chiefly video traffic, mean an ever-increasing quantity of data is being transported through the global fibre optic communication network. In the medium term (10 to 25 years) the core network must be capable of sending several 10 Tbit/s per transmission fibre across transoceanic distances. The transport of such quantities of data as cheaply as possible is only feasible with the aid of innovative techniques, which are based on multistage modulation formats with simultaneous modulation of amplitude and phase in several states.

Max Planck and Fraunhofer are developing a new type of purely optical regenerator for this. This requires the numerical simulation of the physical effects as well as the competence to build prototypes.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light

Duration: 2009 - 2012

The aim of this project is to develop a system for the automatic cultivation, monitoring and sorting of cells. This research, which is being carried out on mouse embryonic stem cells (ES cells), should result in the attainment of the maximum possible throughput (500 transfections per month). The cultivation of ES cells requires the particularly good stabilisation of the cultivation conditions.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM
Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA
Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics

Duration: 2008 - 2011

The focus of this project is the potato, that is the sustainable use of the existing or potential biodiversity of Solanum tuberosum. The aim is to optimise the valuable organ of the potato tuber for human use and to identify tuber proteins that would lend themselves to a variety of biotechnological and medical uses. A particular aim here is to diminish the reducing sugar content and consequently prevent the formation of bitter and unhealthy substances following cold storage and during the processing of potato tubers. The decomposition of the strength of the reducing sugars can be influenced at several points in the metabolic pathway. Another aim of BIOSOL is to analyse the structural and functional biodiversity of enzyme inhibitors from potato tubers as a function of the suitability or non-suitability of certain potato varieties for crisp/potato chip production and to identify gene variants that positively influence suitability for crisps/potato chips. Moreover, it is intended to examine whether the biodiversity of the enzyme inhibitors could assume a function as natural plant antibodies (‘innate plantibodies’) and whether certain inhibitor variants could be used in biotechnical processes or in medical applications. Because these proteins can be obtained from potatoes as a by-product of starch isolation, the process route to starch extraction could be significantly enhanced in economic terms.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME
Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research

Duration: 2008 - 2011

The development of the structure size in semiconductor technology is an example of the application of short wavelength XUV radiation, for which sources are to be made available in the project. To this end, a system comprising the following components is being developed: oscillator, pre-amplifier, power amplifier, pulse compression, enhancement resonator with EUV generation and EUV decoupling. Fraunhofer is responsible for the design of the overall system and the components to generate the femtosecond pulses, Max Planck for the pulse compression and enhancement.

Participating institutes:
Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology
Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics

Duration: 2008 - 2011