At the JEC Forum DACH which takes place in Augsburg, Germany, from November 29 to 30, the winners of both the JEC Composites Startup Booster and the AVK Awards will be announced, in addition to an extensive programme of business meetings and conferences.

Five finalists have been chosen for the JEC Composites Startup Booster which is open to all entrepreneurs, SMEs, startups and academic spinoffs building innovative composite and advanced materials and based in Germany, Austria or Switzerland (the DACH region).

The finalists are:

- BioWerkz, which has developed a bio-based, resource-efficient and CO2-negative material called NEWood using only wood and agricultural waste, with fungal mycelium – the root network of mushrooms – as a natural binder.

- Bufo Technology, the maker of Hardcork from cork fibres and a thermosetting matrix. Hardcork can be manufactured as a core material, sandwich panel or complex moulded part.

- Cavicore, which produces ready-to-use water soluble cores for the realisation of hollow composite parts. The “lost cores” have the advantage of being temperature-resistant and stable, as well as eco-friendly and recyclable, consisting of only pure salts without binders. They are also manufactured mechanically with no need for expensive tools.

- Composite Recycling, which has developed a highly energy efficient and sustainable process to separate resins from fibres. Working with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the team has designed a post-treatment to clean the fibres and make them reusable in new composites.

- Microwave Solutions GmbH, the developer of an agile and modular microwave plasma and selective depolymerization technology for molecular recycling, fibre recovery and nanomaterial creation.

JEC Forum DACH’s primary goal is to promote the DACH region’s dynamic composites ecosystem.

www.jec-dach.events