RDM Rotterdam
Belgian Genius
Pierre, CEO of Fluitec, graduated as a nuclear engineer. He started his career at ENGIE in a Belgian nuclear power plant and then immersed himself in renewable energy. After an MBA in Spain, Pierre sought the dynamic setting of a start-up company, and found it at Fluitec in 2009. “Fluitec was a real start-up populated by great people with bold ideas about an age-old business model that could be changed.”
Running Smoothly
So Fluitec focuses on lubricants. But what are these for? Pierre explains: “Every time you get into a car, you rely on oil to keep everything running smoothly. Even electric vehicles! Traditionally, this lubricant is treated as a consumable, as it’s regularly changed, discarded and replaced. The same process takes place in industrial environments, but on a much larger scale, thousands of times the volume compared to an automotive engine.”
Fluitec began with a bold question: ‘Should we throw away oil regularly? Can oil last the entire service life of equipment?' Over the past two decades, Fluitec has developed and patented breakthrough technologies to prove that industrial oils can indeed last the lifetime of the equipment in which it’s used . For example, they discovered that the oil does not need to be replaced in its entirety, but that replenishing certain chemicals and filtering waste products in the oil is sufficient.
“Our process is similar to how a doctor tests your blood. If a test shows that there is a certain vitamin deficiency, you get a syringe full of that vitamin and you’re fine for a while. We measure the oil and add back the necessary chemicals that disappear during the usage process. This allows companies not only to save a lot of money, but also to reduce CO2 emissions by 70 to 80 percent.” This means Fluitec is challenging the age-old business model of the oil industry. “We have shown the industry that we can at least triple the lifetime of lubricants in use.”
At Home in RDM
Fluitec operates in more than 100 countries and has offices in the United States, Singapore and Australia. But here in RDM, Pierre really feels at home. “We’re in a very special ecosystem here. Only in the US could I find something similar, but that was only for much larger companies. In RDM we are close to like-minded innovative companies, current and potential customers, and of course the innovators of the future.” RDM invites connections between surrounding companies who like to keep each other informed and push each other. “Recently I gave a pitch at the iTanks event at RDM and went to meet our neighbours from Ampelmann,” Pierre says. “We also want to investigate whether we could collaborate in future with students from the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. That’s how we try to keep growing in a balanced way so that we will continue making an even bigger difference 100 years from now.”
Photography by Eric Fecken
