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Wacken, space, and science – how does that fit together? With Wacken Space Camp! At this year's Wacken Open Air music festival, numerous partners from industry, science, and space organizations came together to provide information about astronomy, space travel, and space technology directly on the festival grounds. Right in the middle of it all: Fraunhofer AVIATION & SPACE and our extended reality expert Kathrin Konkol.

In the KIKERP project, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK are working with partners to develop an AI assistance system that evaluates refrigerators, washing machines and similar appliances that have reached the end of their useful life to determine the most effective next step: Are they suitable for repair and refurbishment, or do they need to be recycled instead? Incorporated into a cloud-based management platform, the system identifies household appliances based on images, helping to determine their quality and price so the used and refurbished products can be sold on e-commerce portals.

The workshop is being organised by Fraunhofer IPK in Berlin in collaboration with Fraunhofer IPMS in Dresden, the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park and the Vietnamese-German University. The aim is to highlight Vietnam's potential as a dynamic and strategically important location for semiconductor production and investment. --- Please note: The workshop will be held in English. ---

In April, Fraunhofer IPK will be presenting solutions for the aviation industry at two trade fairs. Both times we will bring a life-size aircraft interior wall. Meet us from March 31 to April 4 at Hannover Messe and from April 8 to 10 at AIX in Hamburg.

Fraunhofer IPK is opening its doors to all science fans for the Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften on June 22 from 5:00 pm to midnight. Together with IWF of the TU Berlin, we will present an exciting program about our research and development in the "House of Modern Production Technology".

The aerospace industry is striving for a climate-neutral future. Accordingly, the ILA 2024 in Berlin from 5 to 9 June – supported by the European Commission as a strategic partner – will focus on topics such as climate protection, sustainability and digitalization.

Nucleic acid-based medications such as mRNA vaccines offer tremendous potential for medicine and are opening up new therapeutic approaches. These active ingredients must be enclosed inside nanoparticles to ensure that they get to where they are needed inside the body’s cells. The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK and FDX Fluid Dynamix GmbH have worked together to develop a technology platform for the production of nanoparticles that can achieve particle quality and stability at levels previously out of reach: FDmiX, short for Fraunhofer Dynamic Mixing Technologies. Swiss chemical and pharmaceutical company Lonza has now licensed the technology for its own good manufacturing practice (GMP) production activities.

Fraunhofer IPK will be exhibiting at Hannover Messe from April 22 to 26, 2024. At the Fraunhofer booth in hall 2, stand B24, we will be presenting exhibits from three projects: Battery Pass, BioFusion 4.0 and Gaia-X.

Starting in February 2027, all new traction batteries, two-wheeled vehicle batteries and industrial batteries with a capacity of over 2 kWh that are marketed in the EU will require a digital battery passport. The purpose is to ensure transparency and sustainability in the battery value chain, reduce environmental impacts and encourage the secondary use of batteries. The Battery Pass Consortium, with the participation of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK, is developing frameworks and recommendations in terms of content and technology for implementing the passport. Researchers from Fraunhofer IPK are responsible for the design and implementation of the technical standards. From April 22 to 26, 2024, they will be at the Hannover Messe (Hall 2, Booth B24) presenting a draft technical reference standard designed to enable battery passports — and all types of digital product passports — to be implemented in a way that is scalable and interoperable.

From February 2027, all new traction, two-wheeler and industrial batteries with a capacity of more than 2 kWh placed on the EU market will require a digital battery passport. A consortium of industry, technology and academia has published the first technical guidance and demonstrator for its implementation.