Micafil AG
The Micafil insulation AG (since 1998 Micafil AG ) in Zurich-Altstetten existed from 1918 to 2004 as an independent company. Today it belongs to the Asea Brown Boveri Group (ABB) . Its main line of business is the manufacture of insulators , insulation materials for the electrical sector and high-voltage bushings . The Micafil stop of the Zürcher Verkehrsverbund is named after the company.
history
Micafil AG was founded in November 1918 on the basis of Fritz Aebi's electromechanical workshop . Aebi was the first product to manufacture heating cabinets for the paint industry. A large order from Aebis gave the impetus for founding the stock corporation. The company name Micafil is derived from two important materials used in electrical engineering: Mica stands for “ mica ” and fil for “wire”. In the first business year the company employed 33 people. In the beginning the company produced electrical insulation and winding equipment. In 1926, she began manufacturing transformer bushingsfor an operating voltage of 220 kV, a pioneering achievement at the time. After 1927 Micafil relied on the newly invented compound foil , which replaced the shellac-bound insulators. Another important technology introduced by Micafil was the so-called mica circulation machine. The production of capacitors followed at the end of the 1920s , and high vacuum pumps in 1932. An in-house development, the impregnation agent Nepolin , made it possible to manufacture capacitors that stood outdoors and were practically no longer exposed to any aging process. For the national exhibition in 1939 , Micafil and Paul Scherrer developed the "Tensator", a DC voltage generator or one of the first particle accelerators, which later served the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) for research purposes.
After the Second World War, Micafil benefited from the construction boom in the power plant sector as it was a world leader in the manufacture of 400 and 800 kV condenser bushings for high-performance transformers. On the other hand, the winding technology sector also boomed, where Micafil was represented with the most modern ring winding machines. These were able to wind wires with a diameter of 0.01 mm for ultra-fine potentiometers and copper profiles with a cross-section of 1500 mm². As a result of the increasing load on the transformers, the last area was the area of oil processing systems for insulating oils with the associated development departments.
Right from the start, the headquarters and the factories were located between Badenerstrasse and Hermetschloostrasse in Altstetten. Micafil produced the often huge special machines for the production of the electrical insulators itself, so that a machine factory was also established on the area, later also a capacitor factory and a department for vacuum pumps. The partly groundbreaking products allowed the company to grow rapidly after the Second World War and to invest in research. In 1962, the test laboratory in Altstetten, which had been in existence since 1928, became one of the most modern laboratories for high voltage technology in Europe. In 1968 the company employed 900 people. In 1996, a part of the factory area that was no longer used was rebuilt with apartments and business premises under the project name "Micafil-Areal". Within the new quarter, a street was named «Micafilstrasse».
In 1998, Micafil was taken over by ABB. The original company was dissolved on June 14, 2004 and merged with ABB Schweiz AG. Today, “ABB Switzerland, Micafil” continues to produce insulating materials, insulated components and systems for electrotechnical applications, especially generator insulation and cast resin systems, in the “Micafil” factory area.
Web links
literature
- "Micafil AG Zurich". In: Chronicle of the city and the district of Zurich. Zurich 1964, pp. 187–189.
Coordinates: 47 ° 23 '34.42 " N , 8 ° 28' 29.59" O ; CH1903: 678,235 / 249635