International award for AHEAD project with SPH participation

The AHEAD (Advanced Heat Pump Demonstrator) research project by pharmaceutical manufacturer Takeda has received the Net-Zero Industries Award 2023. The prize is awarded by the global initiative "Mission Innovation – Net-Zero Industries (MI-NZI)" and honours solutions and innovations that accelerate the use of technologies to decarbonize industry. An independent international jury of experts selected the winners from almost 70 submissions. The AHEAD project won the national prize for Austria in the "Outstanding Projects" category.

AHEAD aims to achieve sustainable pharma production at the biopharmaceutical company Takeda's production site in Vienna. To this end, the Thermbooster^TM will convert the existing heat from the Takeda hot water system into superheated steam. The Thermbooster^TM carries out the decisive step in a cascade of systems: the generation of steam at approx. 120°C. This is further compressed in a downstream process in a steam compressor and thus brought to the 11 bar(a) required at Takeda. The entire system reduces up to 90 percent of the CO2 emissions at the production site and enables completely CO2-free production for around seven months of the year. This saves 1,900 tons of CO2 per year.

We are delighted with this success and are very proud to be involved in this outstanding project as a consortium partner and supplier of our heat pump technology!