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ENVIOTCAST

Foto © AIT LKR

The production of castings takes place in foundries in several individual, sequential steps: Melting, casting, heat treatment and mechanical processing. At present, however, the individual production steps in today’s foundries are largely separated from each other in terms of energy and information technology, without any overall energy optimisation. This makes complete decarbonisation much more difficult. In the project envIoTcast (Environmentally friendly casting) the modern, sustainable concept of the Green Foundry 4.0 is developed and demonstrated, which networks the different production steps both in terms of energy and information technology and thus offers the following possibilities:

  1. Increasing energy efficiency by up to 30% through reduction of heat losses, increased waste heat utilisation.

  2. The use of a central process control system that collects information from all plants and acts as a central controller. This is the only way to enable the use of waste heat in different processes.

  3. A complete decarbonisation of the remaining energy consumption by switching to CO₂-neutral primary energy sources (esp. green electricity, biogas, hydrogen, etc.).

  4. The use of appropriate technologies for the provision and distribution of heat up to about 700 °C: electric heating technologies, burners for biogas/hydrogen, heat exchangers, high-temperature heat pumps, heat storage systems.

  5. This will enable an increase in the competitiveness and value creation of the European and Austrian automotive supply industry, with involvement of stakeholders from politics, business and the public.

The essential technological and conceptual aspects are set up and intensively tested and developed in the Green Demo Foundry 4.0 at AIT-LKR Ranshofen. This provides the industry with a test bed for testing the different technologies and methods, which significantly simplifies the complex transition towards full decarbonisation.

„A complete decarbonisation of foundries is imperative from both a social and economic perspective in terms of sustainability and competitiveness. The Green Foundry concept developed and demonstrated in the project 4.0 (Green Foundry 4.0) enables this difficult transition.“

Christoph Zauner
Project manager envIoTcast,
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH

Milestones

  1. Develop the Green Foundry 4.0 concept in detail;
  2. Develop technologies to increase energy efficiency;
  3. Technologies for the complete decarbonisation of foundries are developed;
  4. Develop a central Industry 4.0-capable process control system for monitoring and controlling a Green Foundry 4.0;Green Demo Foundry 4.0 at AIT – LKR Ranshofen;
  5. Core technologies of the Green Foundry 4.0 at AIT – LKR have been successfully tested.
News

Forum Aluminium: NEFI expert Christoph Zauner presents groundbreaking NEFI solutions for green foundries

14. July 2023

In early July 2023, the FORUM ALUMINIUM trade conference took place for the first time at the Glanzstoff-Areal in St. Pölten. Over a period of three days, visitors were able to experience a wealth of cross-industry presentations, best practice examples, and presentations on current industry developments and research findings.

More information

New Energy for Industry (NEFI) presents the Green Foundry Concept at automotive.2023

17. May 2023

On May 25, 2023 the NEFI-Team in Linz presents latest developments from NEFI project envIoTcast as part of automotive.2023, Austria's renowned conference for visions, innovations and future technologies in the field of modern mobility. In the NEFI project envIoTcast, the concept of a green foundry is being developed under the direction of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology.

More information
Videos
Project management
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
Project manager
Christoph Zauner
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
Christoph.Zauner@ait.ac.at
Key facts
Running time:
03/21 – 02/24
Project volume:
€ 1.764.240
Project overview