immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: Masterarbeit

  • Cowa Thermal Solutions develops highly efficient heat storage system

    Cowa Thermal Solutions develops highly efficient heat storage system

    Cowa Thermal Solutions has developed a method that can increase the capacity of heat storage units for combined photovoltaic-heat pump systems many times over. The founders of the start-up from the canton of Lucerne already researched this technology for heating and hot water as part of their master’s thesis at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

    According to a statement from the university, they then worked for another four years to make their product, the cowa booster storage tank, ready for the market. During the past heating season, it was tested intensively in the field. The tests showed that the cowa technology doubled the autonomy of the heating system and halved the dependence on the electricity grid. The cowa Booster Speicher is now available in stores. The sales partner is the building technology company Meier Tobler. Initial talks for expansion into Germany and Europe are reportedly underway.

    According to the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, it increases capacity without taking up more space. “The core of our technology is the storage material,” explains cowa founder and co-CEO Remo Waser. “It is based on cost-effective salt hydrates, whose storage density is up to three times higher than that of water. Our heat storage units are correspondingly more powerful.”

    The salt hydrates are reportedly in capsules. The storage tank is filled about 40 per cent with heating water and 60 per cent with capsules containing the salt hydrates. “In this way, the cowa buffer storage tank can store two to three times more energy than a conventional water storage tank of the same size without capsules,” says CRO Jan Allemann.

  • New process enables individual design of bricks

    New process enables individual design of bricks

    Keller Unternehmungen, based in Pfungen, and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts(HSLU) have developed a process for customising bricks. It allows builders and architects new design options in series production for the visible surface of the bricks, according to a media release.

    According to the new process, the natural irregularities of historic bricks in texture and colour are brought to bear. This means that the uniqueness of a stone can be used specifically to design a façade.

    “Our goal was to revive and complement these deviations, which have largely disappeared in modern brick production,” project manager Cornelia Gassler is quoted as saying.

    With the cooperation of an interdisciplinary research team consisting of product designers, mechanical engineers and architects, modular tool attachments for the design of the brick surface were thus created. “The production of bricks is a technique that is thousands of years old,” Gassler continues. “Our approach, with its technically simple attachments, reflects that, but at the same time can be controlled very precisely thanks to modern digital control.”

    In modern industrial brickmaking, uniformity is usually sought in bricks. Cornelia Gassler initially questioned this in her Master’s thesis in 2018 and received the Master of Arts Design promotional award from HSLU for it. In 2019, this developed into the research project ExxE, funded by Innosuisse, the Swiss Agency for Innovation Promotion, in cooperation with Keller companies.

    The new designs are now available under the kelesto Signa brand from Keller Systeme AG.

  • EPFL student turns plastic waste into bricks for building

    EPFL student turns plastic waste into bricks for building

    For her master’s thesis in civil engineering, Selina Heiniger developed a method for the more sustainable production of building material. According to a press release from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ( EPFL ), she uses plastic waste, concrete that has already been used and terracotta bricks that have been made small.

    In her master’s thesis, Heiniger wanted to tackle two related challenges: reducing environmental pollution from plastic waste and developing construction methods that use fewer raw materials.

    She developed bricks made from recycled plastic – polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) – as well as crushed terracotta bricks and recycled concrete. Their bricks are designed to interlock, so no mortar is required. Initial tests are encouraging, but the invention is still in the prototype stage. If successful, Heiniger’s work could make a significant contribution to reducing the construction industry’s carbon footprint.

    Heiniger graduated from high school in the canton of Bern and then enrolled at the EPFL to study civil engineering. At first she only studied part-time, as she also worked in a civil engineering company in Lausanne.

    Selina Heiniger’s master’s thesis was jointly developed by Corentin Fivet, head of EPFL’s Laboratory for Structural Exploration in the Faculty of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Yves Leterrier, a senior scientist at EPFL’s Laboratory for Advanced Composites Processing in the Faculty of engineering, supervised.