BMBF “Plasma technologies as the basis for environmentally friendly production in Russia”

About the Campaign “Green Production Technologies”

The initiative to “Promote Innovation and Research in Germany” focuses on the thematic fields of the German Federal Government’s Hightech Strategy. Following the “Nanotechnologies” and “Environmental Technologies” campaigns, a new campaign on the topic of “Green Production Technologies” started in spring 2011. Thematic innovation networks and clusters as well as providers of education programmes were able to apply as participants of the campaign in the context of a competition run by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) on implementing marketing measures. Under the motto “Leading Ideas for Green Production”, the selected companies, research institutions and providers of education programmes are advertising resource-efficient production technologies from Germany in 2011 and 2012. Presentations at international trade fairs, road shows, partnering events and delegation tours are planned. (source: www.research-in-germany.de)

Official Participants – German Champions for Leading Ideas in Green Production

Germany is an innovation leader in resource-efficient production technology thanks to an excellent education and job training system, which is the basis of cutting-edge research and development and consequently of economic success. This is in part due to initiatives by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) such as “Promoting Innovation in Germany”, which supports the marketing activities of organisations that conduct research and foster education in the field of resource-efficient production technology. The organisations introduced on this website promote their services at trade shows, events, workshops and conferences around the world with the support of the BMBF. The goal is to make research in Germany more international and to turn the country into a global hub for the generation and implementation of new knowledge.(source: www.research-in-germany.de)

Profile of the funded project:

The aim of this project is to build up strong partnerships between German and Russian companies with a least:

• two development projects,
• establishment of training arrangements for robot based plasma cutting and
• application of special material for surface coating using spraying and vacuum coating.

Specific workshops for different applications will be held by diverse partners in Germany. During these workshops interested companies and institutes should be informed about the potentials of the plasma technology and invited to further education events. The continuous presence of the network partner in Russia should be realised with the help of this project. Furthermore the degree of brand awareness of BalticNet-PlasmaTec should be increased.

Other topics are:

• robot based plasma cutting
• plasma technology
• plasma spraying
• surface coating
• vacuum coating
• further education workshops/trainings

Results of the project

The cluster BalticNet-PlasmaTec specialises in the initiation of international cooperation and knowledge transfer in the field of plasma technology. In order to push forward innovations and to advertise this key technology, it is important to accelerate the transnational collaboration between research and economy. This was one of the aims of the BMBF-funded Russia project with the title: “Plasma technologies as a basis for environmental friendly productions”. Russia has a wealth of basic research in plasma technology and provides excellent training for young scientists. However, the realisation of the excellent ideas at the market is rather moving slowly. BalticNet-PlasmaTec would like to change this with German application know-how. In order to promote these ideas, the Russian partners are already involved and will be involved in the future in European application projects. One EU application has already been submitted and more are planned for this year.

Another very concrete research approach evolved between the German company Schaeffler AG and the St. Petersburg enterprise Plasma Centre Ltd. Plasmacentre Ltd. explores together with the Schaeffler AG, one of Germany’s most important suppliers in the automotive and industrial sector, the possibilities of co-operation in the field of development of coating systems to reduce the abrasion. First coating tests have been already accomplished.

BalticNet-PlasmaTec offered its Russian and German partners the possibilities for face-to-face talks e.g. during delegation journeys, advanced training events, workshops and fairs. In order to establish a trustful collaboration, the personal and long-standing contact is very important in Russia. Due to earlier contacts and with the help of this project, BalticNet-PlasmaTec found two new Russian partners for the cluster. Furthermore, Collaboration and non-disclosure agreement were signed between BalticNet-PlasmaTec and Center for Development of Innovation Activity in Science and Education of the Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University and Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science SB RAS.

German Russian Brochure (9 MB)