The company’s name, FenX, evokes the phoenix of Greek mythology – a bird that burns to cinders, only to rise again out of its own ashes. The name was chosen when the company was founded in 2019 to personify FenX’s original business idea: the company used fly ash, which is a waste material from coal-fired power plants, to make thermal insulation materials for buildings. The process used an innovative foaming technology, developed at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, to produce porous solids.
This foaming technology continues to be the company’s innovative core. However, nowadays the base material for the insulation foam is mineral waste – specifically, the filtration residues from gravel extraction. Instead of having to be disposed of at the owners’ expense as industrial waste, the clay-containing waste can be transformed into a high-quality building material. The resulting material is as effective as mineral wool. A life-cycle analysis has confirmed that it generates only about half as much greenhouse gas as a standard insulating material. Another advantage is that, if mineral adhesives are used to bond the non-combustible insulation boards, they can be more easily recycled after use.
FenX constructed a pilot plant at its own site in order to be able to run extensive tests on the insulation material (such as determining its behaviour under humidity variations) and gain practical experience with construction industry users. This has paved the way for the construction of commercial production facilities. The firm does not build these plants itself but makes the technology available to interested companies via service and licence agreements so that they can build and operate the production plants.
It is already clear that the FenX foaming process can also be used to treat other waste materials (such as combustion residues from wood and peat power plants). Depending on the raw material, concrete substitutes, niche applications in fire protection, or backfills can be produced. In addition, FenX’s product pipeline covers not only the construction sector but also the chemical, automotive and mechanical engineering sectors.
FenX AG
