From the Sector

Freudenberg Performance Materials Apparel (Freudenberg Apparel) announced the production opening of its state thermal insulation factory located in Long Thanh District, Vietnam. This facility specializes in the production of comfortemp®, Freudenberg’s renowned high-performance thermal insulation material, designed to elevate fashion and sportswear apparel.

This additional new factory extends Freudenberg Apparel's thermal insulation production across key Asian markets, including the Chinese mainland and South Korea. It also significantly strengthens Freudenberg Apparel’s global production capabilities and supply network. This expansion will bolster the company's competitive edge in Asia and reaffirms its ongoing dedication to innovation and evolution within the apparel industry.

"By localizing the production of our thermal insulation materials in Vietnam, we are not only reducing lead times for our customers but also streamlining the supply chain, ensuring we continue to deliver exceptional value for customers," stated John McNabb, Chief Technology Officer at Freudenberg Performance Materials. The Vietnamese facility is equipped to produce sustainable thermal insulations, providing customers with options that align with their sustainable garment production initiatives and goals.

In the joint project "AeroFurnace" funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), the consortium, consisting of the Bavarian Center for Applied Energy Research e.V. (ZAE Bayern) as joint coordinator, the furnace manufacturer FCT Systeme, and SGL Carbon has succeeded in improving the thermal insulation properties of a new composite material by up to 120 percent compared to commercially available felt-based carbon materials. This enabled the project partners to move into a new quality level of thermal insulation in high-temperature industrial applications and pave the way for more energy efficient thermal insulation.

Dr. Gudrun Reichenauer, coordinator of the joint project and head of the work group Nanomaterials at ZAE Bayern: "In this project, we have been able to make the latest findings from the world of nanomaterials accessible to the market through intensive cooperation and thus set new standards in the field of thermal insulation materials."

Dr. Thomas Kirschbaum, project manager at SGL Carbon: "In furnace simulations at the partner FCT, we have already been able to demonstrate what the new material can do: Depending on the temperature program, up to 40 percent of the required process energy can be saved with the new thermal insulation material. The potential of the new material is great." This prediction will be reviewed under real conditions in a demonstrator component in the second half of 2020 as part of the still ongoing BMWi project.

Dr. Jürgen Hennicke, project lead and head of R&D at FCT Systeme: "As a leading manufacturer of industrial vacuum or inert gas high temperature furnaces, the new generation of insulating materials enables us to create furnaces with a more favorable ratio of usable space to external dimensions, thus offering customers improved cost efficiency and productivity".

Based on laboratory samples in plate form it has already been demonstrated that the production of the new material can be represented by technically simple processes and is in principle well scalable. However, there is still a long way to go before the product is ready for serial production.

The third largest share of final energy in Germany is used for the generation of heat in industrial processes (22.6 percent). In many industries, e.g. in the steel and ceramics industry, energy-intensive high-temperature processes run above 1000°C – these alone require almost 50 percent of the industrial process heat. Suitable thermal insulation materials can significantly reduce energy demand while maintaining the same usable volume.