Heraeus Noblelight’s humm3 Xenon Heating Innovation selected as a CAMX 2022 award finalist

Cambridge, 24.08.2022

Cambridge, UK – Heraeus Noblelight Ltd., based in Cambridge (UK), the center of excellence for flash systems technology, announces their selection as a CAMX 2022 award finalist in the ‘Unsurpassed Innovation Award’ category. The award entry titled, humm3 Xenon Heating Innovation - Lowers Cost and Increases Sustainability in the Mass Production of Composite Pressure Vessels and Pipes, showcases the current and future impact the new humm3 enterprise, a Xenon heat source, delivers to the composites industry.

The CAMX Awards recognizes innovations that will significantly impact composites and advanced materials. The ‘Unsurpassed Innovation’ Award category celebrates a product with a design that incorporates low-cost materials for high-volume applications that can change the outlook of a particular market.

Heraeus Noblelight’s humm3 enterprise heating technology harnesses the unique properties of the Xenon flashlamp to provide the energy and control needed to process thermoplastics to produce parts in a single step, massively reducing production time and cost. The broad spectral output is absorbed by a much greater selection of materials than other powerful heat sources such as lasers, so enabling the use of cheaper and more sustainable materials, such as glass fiber and bio-derived composites.

Decarbonization and the drive toward sustainability is fundamentally changing the composites landscape. The mass production of lightweight pressure vessels, pipes and other components needed to support global decarbonization requires new technical approaches. Today many such components are produced from costly materials, in time and energy consuming multistep production processes at rates that will not support future demand. Forecasted demand for vehicles and infrastructure necessitates the ability to produce lightweight components rapidly, cost effectively, and from materials that may be recycled at end of life. These factors were central to the design of the humm3 enterprise system. humm3’s broad spectral output can safely heat a wider range of materials, and thus shows the potential to increase manufacturing rates by a factor of 10 at least, when compared with traditional multi-step processes.

Ed Arneson, Composites Sales Manager for Heraeus Noblelight noted, “Our new humm3 enterprise system is designed for large production cells enabling high throughput for composite materials and components such as pressure vessels, pipes and components in automotive, aerospace, oil & gas, and construction industry applications. We are delighted to be a finalist for this industry-leading award.”

CAMX 2022 takes place October 17 – 20 in Anaheim, CA. The CAMX Award judging is conducted by a panel of industry experts with the winners announced on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 from 08:30 am to 10:00 am PDT. Heraeus Noblelight will be exhibiting at CAMX 2022 in Booth F54.