More and more companies are implementing carbon reduction measures, products and innovations, but taking that step to go green can require a lot of work and effort. With the EIC Greenhouse Gas Programme, the EIC wants to further stimulate and support innovators to reduce their carbon footprint. For those that still need a gentle nudge in the right direction we gathered several inspiring EIC companies for you, projects that are taking the motto "climate action is a business case" to the next level. In this week’s edition we meet with CemeCon Scandinavia, a Danish coating competence centre.
CemeCon Scandinavia A/S is a coating competence centre founded on two decades of knowhow and technology from universities and research institutes. They offer physical vapour deposition (PVD) surface treatments that improve energy efficiency, increase the lifetime of tools, and reduce the cost of manufacturing, thereby supporting their customers to become market leaders in their respective fields.
The Danish company is among the pioneers in using advanced PVD coatings for moulding tools. Building on their teams’ balanced mix of scientific, technological, and commercial skills and proven competencies, they have succeeded in establishing coating solutions that enable their customers to significantly increase the lifetime of their tools (up to 100-fold), increase the productivity (0-15%), reduce or omit the need for lubrication, and reduce expensive downtime due to machine service time.
- By increasing the lifetime of moulding tools, with an average of at least 6-fold, they reduce the amount of CO2 that would be emitted to produce these tools by a factor of 6.
- Tools can be de-coated and recoated 4-5 times, yielding additional 4-5-fold increase in the lifetime of the tools. Therefore, their coatings in combination with decoating have the potential to reduce the CO2 from production of tools by up to 96%.
- Their coatings can also increase the tool productivity resulting in more parts produced with the same machine time and electricity, hence reducing the CO2 footprint per part produced even further.
Konrad Bienk, CEO of CemeCon, is proud of the advantages their technology brings to their customers, noting that “by reducing the environmental impact of the tools used, and improving the usage moulding process we can sometimes increase the productivity by up to 10% therefore reducing the overall CO2 emissions of production of parts up to 20-40%.”
Also, internally CemeCon is at the forefront of greenhouse gas reduction. For instance, they have switched to certified “green” electricity, paying extra to ensure that the amount of electricity they use is originating from sustainable sources. They have also initiated an internal optimization process, by building their own “intelligent control system” that ensures that, e.g., supply machines, such as the cooling system, are scalable and only active when required. This has allowed them to reduce their electrical consumption by more than 12% despite an increase in production. To this Konrad Bienk commented that “we are constantly improving our coatings, not only the performance, but also looking for alternative procedures to make them even more sustainable than they already are. Our customers benefit from a coating produced in an even more environmentally friendly manner that can prolong the lifetime of their tools and reduce the need for lubrication – further reducing the CO2 footprint of their production.”
About the EIC GHG programme
With the EIC GHG programme, part of the Business Acceleration Services, the EIC offers its beneficiaries the support and expertise needed to assess, track and efficiently reduce their carbon footprint through the use of a dedicated GHG tool, monthly webinars and further resources.
In addition, co-creation activities with corporates, industrial associations, regions in carbon transition and other EIC beneficiaries are planned. Applications for the EIC GHG: Co-creation with SUEZ and Cepi are open now! More information on the EIC GHG programme can be found here.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.