Friday, 6/30/2017
The Lamitech project was
presented at TECNET, an event dedicated to technology and creativity. The
presentation took place on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd
June 2017, in São João da Madeira, Aveiro district.
Led by the Fibrenamics international platform of the University of Minho
(UMinho), the Lamitech project is the result of a partnership with ERT Têxtil
Portugal, a company dedicated to the lamination of surfaces for application in
competitive markets and oriented to urban and modern lifestyles.
Lamitech was born from two previous projects (financed by Portuguese
funding programme QREN) and aims to show – in front of a specialised audience –
the technical and economic advantages of the technologies related to active
technical laminates with energy features, heating, interactivity and thermal
and acoustic insulation. The main objective of this demonstrator project is to
convert technology into product, as Raul Fangueiro, professor at the EEUM and
project coordinator highlights: “Lamitech does not aim to develop knowledge, but
rather to demonstrate to the market that we have a valid and advantageous
technology compared to the current existing solutions”.
One of the previous projects developed multifunctional laminates with power
generation capacity – mainly heat dissipation – that resulted in a model also
developed for the interior of vehicles with heating capacity though fibers
technology. The other one focused on the development of interactive wall
coverings, where – in addition to thermal and acoustic insulation – it also
offered the possibility of interacting with users in a certain space. “From
here, we moved towards a demonstration project of these two technologies,
Lamitech, which aims to demonstrate innovative technologies and convert them
into products, in order to show the market the technical, economic and
technical-scientific advantages of the technologies that were developed and
embedded in these products”, Raul Fangueiro explains.
The
demonstrators created from Lamitech are subdivided into two groups: an
architectural one, called a hexosensor, and a vehicle, applicable to electric
vehicles. The hexosensors are widely used in areas such as urban
rehabilitation, where many of the buildings have several gaps related to insulation.
Therefore, the aim was to provide these buildings with thermal and acoustic insulation.
On the other hand, the research team also wanted to give a certain intelligence
to the space, making it interactive with the user. “Related to interactivity,
we have created a concept based on sensors-actuators that provides us essential
information such as luminosity, air quality and room temperature. We also have
a very strong interaction of our smartphone with these demonstrator models,
creating an interaction between the user and space through technology at an
early stage”, Fernando Cunha, one of the researchers of the project explains.
The vehicle demonstrator, and starting from the concept of electric mobility,
tried to compensate the charging of the
vehicle itself, through the incorporation of flexible photovoltaic
panels: “Here, the integration of the technology is about laminate, in other
words, of gluing the panels to the bonnet of the vehicle. It is a technology
that is not easy and is not accessible in the market. Thus, we have created a
technological and economic added value”, Fernando Cunha clarifies.
Lamitech and its demonstration models were presented at the third
edition of TECNET, a fair dedicated to technology, companies, innovation and
entrepreneurship. Led by the Fibrenamics international platform of the UMinho
and ERT Têxtil Portugal, the project is co-financed by the European Regional
Development Fund (FEDER) under the COMPETE 2020 programme and counts on a total
funding of 359.900 euros.
+ info: http://www.web.fibrenamics.com/pt/; http://www.ertgrupo.com/pt; http://www.tecnet.com.pt/
