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Scalable manufacturing of bio-inspired & bio-based Graphene Foam components of extreme performance

Project description

Sustainable solutions using bio-inspired graphene foam

Nature’s use of foam and sponge-like structures for shock absorption and noise reduction showcases clever evolutionary design. Yet many industries, such as automotive, aerospace, and marine, still depend on non-sustainable, fossil-based materials for these purposes. With this in mind, the EU-funded Bio.3DGREEN project will develop a cost-effective, bio-inspired platform based on graphene foam (GF). This material addresses industrial needs for vibration and impact absorption while withstanding extreme conditions. The project will enable scalable production of complex graphene-based components using a high-throughput, laser-based additive manufacturing process. Its benefits will be demonstrated across four industries, with a focus on optimising manufacturing for automotive suspension systems, aerospace uses, and quieter shipping.

Objective

Nature uses foam or sponge-like structures in various organisms for purposes like shock absorption, noise reduction, and vibration compensation in a remarkable example of evolutionary adaptation and functional design. On the other hand, many products still rely on non-sustainable materials of fossil-based origin, for example foams and elastomeric used for vibratory motion, sound, harshness, energy, and shock-impact absorption in industries such as automotive, aerospace and marine. Example of such Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH) materials are rubber and engineering resins. Bio.3DGREEN develops and demonstrates a novel manufacturing approach for a cost-effective bio-inspired platform of bio-based components based on graphene foam (GF) to meet the industrial needs, i.e. vibration, sound and shock-impact absorption and durability in extreme conditions. Bio.3DGREEN democratizes graphene technology and enables the unscalable fabrication of graphene-based components of complex geometries to be demonstrated at TRL 6 through a high throughput, laser-based Additive Manufacturing (AM) procedure. The procedure is bio-inspired, mimicking structures such as the human bone, and is based solely on bio-based graphene system with vegetable oil as the raw material, resulting in carbon-positive manufacturing of the new components. Bio.3DGREEN demonstrates the superior bio-based GF parts in four different industries, aiming to drive the optimization of the new manufacturing approach through an application-driven approach: Automotive suspension systems & isolation panels, aerospace applications and quiet shipping. Bio.3DGREEN achieves a multi-disciplinary approach to develop, optimize, and improve smart manufacturing application-driven, bio-based GF components, also considering the performance of current materials used, their cost, market size, wastage and recyclability, sustainability of manufacturing process, inclusion in Europe’s circular economy and LCA, LCC aspects.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL4-2024-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-TWO-STAGE

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Coordinator

LZH LASERZENTRUM HANNOVER EV
Net EU contribution
€ 877 624,93
Address
HOLLERITHALLEE 8
30419 Hannover
Germany
Region
Niedersachsen Hannover Region Hannover
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (12)

Partners (1)