Research and Development News | May 2025

Chips, Wheels and Electric Motors Winners at German Innovation Awards 2025

Ultra-slim chips, efficient wheels and powerful electric motors were just some of the prize recipients at this year’s German Innovation Prize 2025 ceremony in Munich. The prestigious annual event, hosted by the Wirtschaftswoche business news magazine in partnership with Accenture and O₂ Telefónica with the patronage of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, awards innovation prizes to pioneering large companies, SMEs and start-ups whose innovative strengths change industry and transform markets. 

Ultra-thin power semiconductors developed in Neubiberg near Munich helped Infineon Technologies to the large company prize. Used to control high electrical currents, the ultra-thin wafers offer less resistance to electrical current, resulting in 15 percent less power loss compared to conventional wafers that are two to three times thicker. Launched on the market in July 24, Infineon’s power semiconductors will be primarily deployed in AI data center scenarios to reduce power consumption. 

Swabian car wheel manufacturer Entec-Stracon won in the medium-sized business category. Using patented casting technology, the SME produces car wheels made of aluminum in the shortest possible time with a remarkably economical use of resources. Turbu pressure casting produces high-precision aluminum wheels in just 0.05 seconds per wheel. They are also up to 25 percent lighter, save 50 per cent energy in production and significantly reduce manufacturing costs. After years of development work and 55,000 hours of invested labor, the innovative manufacturing process is now ready for use with the first of these revolutionary wheels soon to be on the road in collaboration with automotive manufacturer and development partner BMW.

Additive Drives walked away with the start-up prize for the development of innovative, efficient and powerful electric motors using 3D printing. Using additive manufacturing technologies, the start-up is able to create individual electric motor solutions that make electric motors simpler, more efficient and cheaper. 

Neura Robotics CEO David Reger was the proud recipient of the special “Innovator of the Year” award for the company’s decisive contribution to the field of humanoid and cognitive robotics. 

Bavarian Start-up’s Battery Recycling Breakthrough

Bavarian start-up Tozero has successfully completed a battery cell test with 100 percent recycled graphite – the first time this has been achieved on an industrial scale according to the company. The company’s recycling process recovers more than 80 percent of graphite while maintaining its morphological integrity on an industrial scale, allowing the material to be refined back to battery grade quality. The company believes that the advance is a milestone for the European battery industry, with graphite having an important role to play in large-scale renewable energy storage as electric mobility increases demand. Tozero believes that demand for graphite is expected to increase by 20 to 25 times current levels by 2040 in the European Union. Some 98 percent of European graphite is currently imported, with China controlling over 90 percent of global supply. 

Jupiter Artificial Intelligence Factory for Jülich

A new EUR 55 million AI factory is being built to accommodate the Jupiter (“Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research”) exascale supercomputer at Forschungszentrum Jülich. The supercomputer – with the per second computing power equivalent to one million smartphones – already consists of two cluster and booster modules and will be expanded to include a cloud platform (Jarvis – “Jupiter Advanced Research Vehicle for Inference Services”) for inference services allowing AI models to be trained in the booster module. According to Jülich Forschungszentrum, the “Jupiter Artificial Intelligence Factory” (JAIF) is intended to support start-ups and SMEs in Europe in the development of high-performance, secure and data protection-compliant AI application in the healthcare, energy, climate change, education, media, and finance sectors. 

FlowPhotoChem: Producing Chemical Feedstocks from Solar Energy

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and industry and research partners have set up and tested a new demonstration plant to produce chemical feedstocks using specialized reactors. Part of the EU-funded FlowPhotoChem project, the project is seeking to manufacture chemical feedstocks – essential to plastics manufacturing, fuel production and fertilizer synthesis –in environmentally friendly fashion. Conventional process methods use vast amounts of raw materials and energy, releasing almost 40 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents annually in Germany alone. Working in tandem with European research institute and industry partners, DLR has tested a process in which concentrated solar radiation supplies a significant portion of the energy to produce chemical feedstocks from water and carbon dioxide. "Research into the solar production of chemical feedstocks enables us to develop fully renewable processes for the large-scale production of these chemicals and energy carriers in the future," explains Michael Wullenkord from the DLR Institute of Future Fuels, who led DLR's contribution to the project. Solar-driven processes could play a crucial role in reducing the industry's carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuel resources. The primary focus of the FlowPhotoChem project has been the production of ethylene, a key precursor to polyethylene (PE). This plastic is predominantly used in films and packaging and is the most widely used plastic worldwide in terms of volume. The long-term aim is to make the technology ready for real-life use in regions with strong solar radiation including southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and the US. 

Electric Vehicle Charging Curb Ready for Serial Production after One Year Test Phase

A curbstone charging solution for charging electric vehicles will go into serial production after a successful one-year test pilot phase in Cologne. Rheinmetall’s charging solution integrates the charging infrastructure directly into the sidewalk, thereby doing away with bulky charging stations and cabling. Together with partners TankE, four charging curbsides have been tested at two locations in the city’s Lindenthal neighborhood. The system has proven its reliability after more than 2,800 successful charging processes with an availability rate of more than 99 percent. 

New Metal Production Process Reduces Emission Levels

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials have developed a new metal production process that replaces carbon with hydrogen to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions and reduce energy consumption levels. Metal production is responsible for around 10 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, with the metal alloying process also very energy intensive. The researchers have developed a process that combines several processing steps into one in which carbon is replaced by hydrogen as a reducing agent and in which alloying takes place at comparatively low temperatures. As well as reducing metal production’s carbon footprint the new technique also saves up to 40 percent in energy expended. The process still only works at laboratory scale but could effectively transform metal production if successfully transferred to industrial practice. 

Würzburg Researchers Take Important Artificial Photosynthesis Step

Researchers at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Center for Nanosystems Chemistry, University of Würzburg, are working on an artificial photosynthesis process that utilizes solar energy to bind carbon dioxide to produce hydrogen. The team, led by Prof. Dr Frank Würthner and working with partners from Yonsei University in Seoul, has succeeded in imitating one of the first steps of natural photosynthesis using a sophisticated arrangement of artificial dyes. These stacked dyes similar to the photosynthetic apparatus in plant cells – to absorb light energy, use it to separate charge carriers and transfer them via electron transportation – have been successfully synthesized, representing an important step towards the development of artificial photosynthesis. The results were published in the Nature Chemistry journal. The research team now wants to expand the nanosystem of stacked dye molecules from four to more components – ultimately creating a type of supramolecular wire that absorbs light energy and transports it quickly and efficiently over longer distances. This would be a further step towards the development of novel photofunctional materials that can be used for artificial photosynthesis purposes. 

AI Algorithms for Airport Operations

Researchers at the Institute for Quantum Physics at Universität Hamburg and IT provider Lufthansa Industry Solutions have joined forces to develop quantum algorithms to optimize airport operations. Together they are seeking to resolve the “airport gate assignment problem” experienced at airports around the world. “With five available gates and one airplane, there are only five assignment options. In this case, the flight manager has it easy. With five gates for two airplanes, there are still 25 options. Airports, however, are generally larger. With 15 gates and 10 airplanes, there are more than 570 billion possibilities,” explains Dr. Joseph Doetsch, Quantum Computing Lead at Lufthansa Industry Solutions.  The complexity of the calculations means that conventional computers quickly reach their limits. The creation of a quantum algorithm that is scalable and accounts for real-life boundary conditions at airports should make real-time solutions a near reality as airports seek to maximize time management and efficiency for optimal gate allocations. The project will be funded for three years as part of the quantum computing initiative of the Hamburg Investment and Development Bank (IFB).