(The event will be held in German with simultaneous translation into English).

Interesting insights will be offered to the industry in the fall at the 22nd International FSK Conference Foamed Plastics and Polyurethanes 2023 on 22 and 23 November. Numerous experts from the industry are expected by the Fachverband Schaumkunststoffe und Polyurethane e.V. (FSK) at this year’s event cooperation partner, Covestro Deutschland AG in Leverkusen.

On Wednesday morning, 22 November 2023, the conference will begin at 11:20 a.m. for all participants in the Baykomm Communication Center of Covestro Deutschland AG. The light-flooded communication area of Baykomm provides a special setting for the conference. After the official welcome by FSK Chairman Albrecht Manderscheid and the keynote speech by Dr Thorsten Heinemann, Head of Group Innovation at host company Covestro, Mr Albrecht Manderscheid will be bid a dignified farewell after 27 years on the FSK Board with a laudatory speech by Dr Markus Steilemann, Chairman of the Board of Management of Covestro Deutschland AG.

Both days of the event are well filled with expert presentations on the main topics of the conference: “Fire – No Thanks”, “PU in Electromobility” as well as “Chemical Recycling” and “Cyber Security”. A top-class panel discussion on chemical recycling and the ceremony for the presentation

of the Innovation Award Foamed Plastics and Polyurethanes 2023 complete the interesting programme.

Participants can look forward to the following lectures:

  • Alexander Hinzsch will open a burning chapter. He reports on the fire day on 8 June 2022 in his company and the lessons learned from it. His conclusion: “Thanks to the good cooperation of all employees, fire restoration specialists, experts and the insurance company, we succeeded in gradually restarting production operations after just one and a half weeks.”
  • Michel Glunk of Continental Automotive Technologies GmbH calls for more sensitivity in dealing with data: “Cyber security is indeed a superficial issue. But the fact is that the threats are still not taken seriously enough.” This is surprising. Because in 2022, there were an average of 1,168 hacker attacks worldwide in the 4th quarter, per week!
  • The EU project “CIRCULAR FOAM” aims to develop a closed-loop circular ecosystem for end-of-life (EoL) rigid PU foam. Dr Catherine Lövenich from Covestro takes stock: “We have made a lot of progress in the first 20 months. We have explored many approaches on how rigid PU foams could be recyclable and closed-loop recycling could become possible.”
  • New ways to increase efficiency in foam development will be demonstrated by Dr Dennis Krause in his presentation “Foaming Simulation – A digital technology for early insights during development”. The combination of laboratory work and simulation helps to reduce development times and costs.

The panel discussion on Wednesday afternoon with leading experts from industry will be dedicated to chemical recycling and process engineering. Scientists and practitioners will discuss and highlight the most important and forward-looking trends.

The late afternoon will be dedicated to the ceremony for the Polyurethane 2023 Innovation Award. A total of 13 applications ranging from young professionals/students to professionals/companies have applied in the two categories of technology and sustainability. It is noteworthy that the sustainability category already reports the strongest field of applicants. In the Design category will not be awarded this year.

At the joint evening event on Wednesday in the Barmenia Loung BayArena, participants will have the opportunity for networking and further professional exchange.

After the lectures on Thursday morning, all interested parties will be given exclusive insights into the newly designed technical centre for high-performance polyurethanes of Covestro Deutschland AG, a crowning conclusion to the symposium.

“With so much on offer, participants can look forward to extremely interesting and forward-looking impulses from the professional world,” says FSK Managing Director Klaus Junginger.

Registration for the conference online.

Information on the Fachverband Schaumkunststoffe und Polyurethane e.V. (FSK), its events and the work of the expert committees can be found online at: www.fsk-vsv.de.