INNOVIP Consortium will reinvent the top-of-the-line insulating material vacuum-insulation-panels (VIP) by improving their thermal performance over the entire lifetime by at least 25 % and making VIPs adjustable, mountable and machineable. By reducing the density of the core material and/or using an alternative core material together with less expensive VIP-envelopes as gas barrier, it will be possible to sell the new product INNOVIP by more than 20 % lower price. Besides, the new product has a reduced embodied energy by at least 25 % and, attaching different cover layers, the panels can fulfill different functions. These additional functions can be adjusted according to the application they address, for example photocatalytic VOC removal from indoor- and outdoor air, anti mould coating, moisture buffering by Aluminium Compounds or summer heat cut-off by latent heat activated in phase change materials (PCMs). Currently there is no such material on the market. INNOVIP will develop such an innovative solution which will lead to a breakthrough in energy efficiency of the opaque parts of the building envelope – both in new built and existing houses. The success of the development process will be demonstrated in two prototypes that can be tested and validated. Development tasks will be carried out in close cooperation with the three complementary and reputed participating testing laboratories. We will show that, in principle, the new product is ready for use in certain important and representative applications, addressing a relevant market volume by replacing conventional insulating materials and standard VIP in established insulation solutions.

During the last decades a trend towards the use of lightweight materials in constructions and infrastructures, as well as in the aerospace and automotive industry is observed. Lightweight components are easy to transport, handle and install and demand less operational energy reducing substantially their environmental footprint and the relative costs. Among other materials, concrete and ceramics are on the focus of interest due to their wide range of application and their durability. Based on end applications lightweight attributes must be coupled with enhanced properties and multifunctionalities, such as high mechanical strength, self-sensing, self-cleaning properties, which can be achieved with the aid of nanomaterials. The main objective of the LightCoce project is to cover the gap in the upscaling and testing of multifunctional lightweight concrete and ceramic materials by providing open access to SMEs or Industry to a single entry point ecosystem consisting of already developed Pilot Lines (including three clusters of existing pilot lines; a. Concrete group, b. Conventional Ceramics group, and c. Advanced Ceramics group), process and materials modelling, Characterization, Standardisation, Regulatory, Safety & Environmental Assessment, Data Management and Innovation Management that will be accessible to the interested stakeholders at fair conditions and cost. The ecosystem will support the upscaling activities of European SMEs and industry, covering a large range of end applications from constructions materials (bricks, ceramic tiles), infrastructures (ready mix concrete, prefabricated components), to high tech applications in automotive & aerospace industry. Thus, LightCoce ecosystem targets will be achieved through the collaboration of a well-balanced multidisciplinary consortium consists of 26 Industrial and RTO partners well recognized and world leading experts in their fields: 5 Large Enterprise 8 RTDs, 12 SMEs, and 1 Association spread across 9 countries.