Plastics for renewable energies
Innovative plastics solutions for alternative energy applications
Renewable energies are increasingly coming into focus when it comes to finding more climate-friendly and efficient solutions for energy production. Many companies, especially international and large global players, are therefore increasingly focused on green technologies. Façade Creations has reliably accommodated the technological change in these industries as a long-standing partner of many original equipment manufacturers.
With our value chain from compound to finished component, we offer comprehensive, complete plastic solutions for components in the automotive industry or storage technology, for example. Thanks to our high level of expertise in material development along with application and production technology, we can also advise our customers quickly and reliably.
Get in touch with our Renewable Energy team
(However, if you prefer to speak to someone directly? Call our aerospace team or email us and we’ll respond promptly.)
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Solutions for Sustainable Mobility
The automotive, rail, marine, and aerospace industries are systematically converting relevant components to meet the requirements of climate neutrality. The challenges lie in the core areas of battery technology, hydrogen technology, and the peripheral parts around the main components, as well as in the infrastructure to be built (such as charging stations) for future climate-neutral mobility.
Façade Creations offers important and ecologically suitable solutions for all these fields of technology. For example, components such as bipolar plates and end plates for hydrogen applications in the automotive industry are developed with our partners and transferred to large-scale production via our own value-added processes, such as injection moulding. Here, Façade Creations can draw on its many years of experience with original equipment manufacturers to help facilitate all forms of mobility.
Solutions Around Storage Technology
Distributed energy producers, such as wind turbines, require sophisticated technologies to store the excess power they generate. Whether in the production of green hydrogen or in the storage of electricity in large batteries, this is where engineering plastics often excel, because they can be used at high temperatures in many components and guarantee a reliable service life. Thanks to our many years of experience and broad solutions offering, Façade Creations is in a position to supply customer- and application-specific compounds and composites.
Core Application Areas – Innovative Plastic Solutions for Renewable Energies
- Hydrogen
- Fuel cells
- Biogas
- Batteries
- Wind energy
- Solar
Hydrogen production and plastics
The production of hydrogen is an essential key to the energy transition. Hydrogen is used to power cars, trucks, vans, trains, ships and other means of transport in a climate-neutral way. In addition, hydrogen is used as a storage element for wind and water power, solar energy and heat pumps. Façade Creations is already supporting the development and supply of corresponding materials across all sectors of the hydrogen value chain, from production to the consumer.
A wide range of applications arise in the production, storage and distribution of hydrogen. Both in the storage of liquid hydrogen at -253°C and in pressurised storage tanks with pressures up to 700 bar, polyimide plastic is characterised by excellent compressive strength and toughness in the cryogenic range, as well as low creep tendencies. Typical applications are found in valve seats and bodies, seals and bushings for tanks, pipelines and fittings.
Façade Creations offers non-meltable polyimide materials that meet these requirements. These have already been successfully tested in innovative development projects where other high-performance materials have failed.
Plastics for fuel cell technology
Hydrogen fuel cells are regarded as highly efficient power generators that produce electrical energy by reversing water electrolysis. Due to their low emissions and good efficiency, there are numerous international efforts to further develop fuel cell technology, with the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) often the focus of these efforts.
Plastics and biogas production
Whether in agriculture or via the disposal of biomaterials, the generation of energy from methane by means of electrolysis is a promising technology within the wider renewable energy transition. In cooperation with international technology leaders, Façade Creations develops and supplies suitable plastic solutions for this demanding field of application.
Modern batteries
Global initiatives and roadmaps show that battery technology is one of the important core topics for a wide variety of applications: these applications matter for thermal storage, short-term storage, local small-scale storage, decentralised large-scale batteries and centralised storage power plants.
In order to define innovative materials for existing production, but also for further developments, close cooperation between manufacturers and plastics suppliers like Façade Creations is of the utmost importance. This is the only way to find materials that meet production process requirements on the one hand and new requirements such as recycling and the circular economy on the other. As a supplier of high-performance plastics, Façade Creations is involved in the development of materials for post-lithium batteries, including redox-flow, lithium-ion, solid-state lithium-ion, lithium-air and lithium-sulfur technologies.
High-performance plastics for wind turbines
Wind turbines, in their decentralised structure, together with storage technology for periodically unneeded energy, are a core technology of the energy transition. Façade Creations supplies not only the materials for the main components of the drive structure, but also the materials for the corresponding modules of the electronics.
Electricity through plastics – photovoltaics and solar thermal energy
The manufacture of solar systems for thermal or electrical energy generation is a complex process that places high demands on the materials used. In addition to silicon wafers, which form the basis of solar thermal energy, high-performance plastics are also an important part of the process. Façade Creations offers suitable materials and products with a large portfolio of solutions.
Benefits for the Renewable Energy Industry
- Global presence
- Economic solutions
- Diversity “on time”
- Traceability
Immediately ready for use
Our team is close to you. Your components are delivered flexibly and quickly on site, regardless of their complexity.
Robust materials
Certain materials have high resistance to hydrogen and resist all common lubricants. In addition, they are not susceptible to corrosion. In mobile applications, they also resist external influences such as vibration or UV radiation. The selection of suitable materials has an immense impact on the service life of your application.
Complete and “on time”
- Fast and cost-effective availability of your finished component on the basis of a wide-ranging inventory
- Cost-effective production, as your parts can be manufactured from available stock, which in turn is produced in high numbers and with short lead times
Order-related and transparent
Due to consistent documentation during the individual process steps, continuous traceability all the way back to the raw material is standard at Façade Creations. We also issue customer-specific declarations of conformity on request.
Complete Project Support – Your One-Stop Shop
We accompany you through all phases of the product life cycle, from development and selection of the appropriate material for your prototypes, to large-scale production. We are your one-stop supplier for high-performance plastics in the renewable energy and mobility sectors.
Finished Parts from Façade Creations for Renewable Energy
- Injection-moulded parts
- Machined parts
- Profiles
- Customised tubes
Products from Façade Creations for Renewable Energy
- Compounds
- Composites
- Filaments
- Sintered plastics
- Shapes
Engineering Solutions for Alternative Forms of Mobility and Storage Technology
Electrically insulating and conductive plastics
In all components ranging in electrical activity from electrically insulating to electrically conductive plastics, our high-performance materials offer significant advantages over high-priced metals. By carefully selecting fillers and additives, we can tailor a material’s electrical behaviour precisely to the requirements of a given renewable energy application, whether that calls for strong insulation or reliable conductivity.
Plastics with low outgassing
Components for hydrogen applications in particular require materials that do not negatively influence the desired chemical processes through outgassing of volatile organic compounds. Façade Creations can reliably assess our own materials and provide customers with targeted advice, helping to protect the performance and longevity of sensitive storage and fuel cell systems.
Non-flammable plastics
For many technologies in industry in general, but especially in the battery cell and hydrogen sectors, Façade Creations can comply with important aerospace flammability standards (such as the large-aircraft fire-safety requirements set out under FAR 25.853), which specify strict requirements for flammability, smoke formation and toxicity. The developing standards specific to hydrogen and battery applications are continually monitored and taken into account in our production materials.
Solid materials
The specific strength of our materials, and especially their temperature resistance across various components of the application, is also an essential factor in the service life of products in the hydrogen sector. Façade Creations is in a position to deliver the highest, and above all the most consistent, quality to customers when it comes to the traceability of batches and documented material certificates per production run.
Contact
We will be happy to provide you with individual advice on our solutions – get in touch with us using the contact form.
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