PORTFOLIO

Today’s materials used for building insulation are mostly flammable, toxic and having a marked carbon footprint. After the London Grenfell fire in 2017 and the Paris agreement on Climate change in 2015, the introduction of new regulations on building insulating materials has been leading to an urgent demand for non-flammable and eco-friendly solutions. Remarkably, buildings account for 38% of the total energy consumption and 30% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) worldwide. To reduce this detrimental impact, novel and high-efficient materials are needed to limit heat transfer and losses. Additionally, thermal insulation materials are expected to reduce by 20% the total energy costs of buildings by 2030. The proposed solutions must fulfill stringent regulations, namely the use of non-flammable, non- toxic and environmental-friendly materials. For those reasons, it is crucial to find safe and cost-effective solutions able to prevent fire tragedies and reduce the energy costs involved in the thermal management of buildings.

FenX mission is to provide innovative and high impact solutions which involve transversally the society, prevent new fire tragedies and improve the current market offer with high-tech and cost-efficient insulating materials. Based on a scientific breakthrough developed at ETH Zurich, FenX transforms mineral waste into highly porous foams with unprecedented and tunable porosity level This enables FenX to design highly porous materials with excellent thermal properties by simply exploiting devalued and widely available raw materials. More importantly, FenX’s foams can be fabricated at ambient temperature yielding to minimal CO2 emissions.

This InnoBooster support allowed us to make significant improvements in the development of the technology, the team and the business case. Thanks to the milestones achieved through the programme, we are ready to industrialize the manufacturing of the panels. Thus, we will be able to continue the development of larger-scale pilot projects with key customers and partners of the building industry. The support helped FenX to stay focused on its dream of more sustainable and affordable buildings.