Press releases

The groundbreaking ceremony on July 22, 2025 marked the start of construction for the Engineering Center for Sustainability (Ingenieurzentrum Nachhaltigkeit – IZN) on Freiburg’s airport campus. The new building will foster closer collaboration between Freiburg’s five Fraunhofer institutes and the University of Freiburg under the umbrella of the Department of Sustainable Systems Engineering (INATECH).

The International Meeting on Chemical Sensors took place in Freiburg, Germany, from June 22 to 26. Over 300 experts from research and industry gathered to discuss scientific advances and industrial applications in chemical sensor technology.

Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) is more environmentally friendly than traditional extraction methods and unlocks new resources. In the recently launched LiMo-Praxis research project, Fraunhofer IPM and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing an optical method for real-time monitoring of lithium content in liquids for commercial lithium extraction.

An increasing number of municipalities are developing urban digital twins. As a rule, the more up-to-date and accurate the data, the more precisely processes can be simulated within a virtual city model. A mobile sensor box developed at Fraunhofer IPM collects highly accurate 3D geodata. Mounted on buses, taxis, or garbage trucks, the box allows the urban environment to be recorded at frequent intervals without the need for special measurement vehicles.

A digital holographic sensor checks the quality of metal bipolar plates for fuel cells with an accuracy of a few micrometers, enabling complete inline quality control for the first time. The sensor data provides the basis for a digital twin of the entire forming process. The digital twin should help understand the causes of recurring errors and optimize the production process.

Fraunhofer researchers have developed sensor systems and measuring equipment that detect leaks in hydrogen lines and tanks. Applications for the new technology include continuous monitoring of hydrogen shipments and facilities in the chemical industry. The researchers use multiple sensor technologies to provide safety equipment covering as many scenarios of the future hydrogen economy as possible.

Highly efficient solid-state heat pumps without compressors – that is the vision of Fraunhofer researchers. With the recent completion of the ElKaWe research project, they took a big step towards realizing this vision. The team made great progress in terms of material and system design, and set up the first electrocaloric demonstrators to show the vast potential of this technology.

How can the vitality of trees be assessed quickly and reliably? In the TreeVitaScan project, researchers from Fraunhofer IPM and the University of Freiburg are testing a comprehensive data model that combines multispectral laser scanning with AI-supported data evaluation. This should make it possible to determine the vitality of individual trees automatically, reliably and across a wide area.

In industrial stamping processes, several hundred sheet metal parts are typically produced per minute. Together with the stamped parts manufacturer Quittenbaum GmbH, researchers at Fraunhofer IPM have now for the first time developed and installed an optical inspection system that checks the dimensional accuracy of every single component in high-speed stamping processes – with an accuracy in the range of 100 micrometers.

Dr. Chiara Lindner, postdoc and employee of Fraunhofer IPM for many years, was honored with the “For Women in Science” Award on November 12, 2024. The award, endowed with 25,000 €, promotes four successful young female scientists from Germany who have distinguished themselves through their work in the experimental natural sciences.