Solvay, Ascendance Flight Technologies and Airborne to develop sustainable aviation solutions

Solvay, a glob­al mar­ket leader in com­pos­ite and poly­mer mate­ri­als, has today signed an agree­ment with Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies, an avi­a­tion start­up locat­ed in Toulouse, France.

This agree­ment will see Solvay, Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies and Air­borne col­lab­o­rate on strate­gic inno­va­tion and the accel­er­a­tion toward sus­tain­able avi­a­tion solu­tions.

By lever­ag­ing the syn­er­gy of their com­bined exper­tise in advanced mate­ri­als and air­craft engi­neer­ing, the part­ner­ship will dri­ve the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of tech­nolo­gies in the avi­a­tion indus­try.

“As the world con­tin­ues to address the chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change, the avi­a­tion sec­tor faces increas­ing pres­sure to reduce its envi­ron­men­tal impact,” states Ger­ald Per­rin, EMEA Busi­ness Man­ag­er for Solvay.

“We are delight­ed to com­bine our strengths and resources with Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies in our joint pur­suit to cre­ate a spear­head­ing force for pos­i­tive change in the avi­a­tion indus­try.”

With its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in pro­vid­ing advanced mate­ri­als and sus­tain­able chemistries, Solvay is posi­tioned to sup­port the indus­try’s tran­si­tion toward more sus­tain­able avi­a­tion.

Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies is known for its ground­break­ing work in devel­op­ing next-gen­er­a­tion sus­tain­able avi­a­tion plat­forms, such as the company’s ATEA hybrid elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft and STERNA hybrid elec­tric propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy.

Air­borne is a leader in the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of com­pos­ites and com­bines dig­i­tal automa­tion sys­tems, as well as aero­space-qual­i­fied man­u­fac­tur­ing ser­vices.

Solvay’s role is to deliv­er advanced com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al, struc­tur­al adhe­sives and poly­mers to achieve supe­ri­or per­for­mance, dura­bil­i­ty and light weight for safe­ty, effi­cien­cy, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of future air­craft. It will inte­grate prod­ucts into Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies sus­tain­able avi­a­tion plat­forms to help min­imise their car­bon foot­print and envi­ron­men­tal impact.

Jean-Christophe Lam­bert, CEO of Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies, com­ment­ed: “Solvay’s com­pre­hen­sive know-how in advanced mate­ri­als and their ded­i­ca­tion to sus­tain­abil­i­ty will help us address the envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges faced by our indus­try and shape the future of air trans­porta­tion with green­er and more effi­cient air­craft.

“Air­borne’s capa­bil­i­ty in both the man­u­fac­tur­ing of aero­space struc­tures and high vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing will help to close the gap between fast pro­to­typ­ing and mak­ing the right choic­es for future man­u­fac­tur­ing.”

Air­borne CTO Mar­cus Kre­mers added: “This part­ner­ship high­lights the com­pos­ite industry’s need to bring design, mate­ri­als and pro­cess­ing exper­tise togeth­er at an ear­ly stage.

“Too often, the ini­tial focus is on pro­to­typ­ing, and only lat­er are the right mate­ri­als, process­es and automa­tion defined which unfor­tu­nate­ly impacts the devel­op­ment stage. Here we are ensur­ing that all aspects are tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion from the start, set­ting us up for suc­cess.”