Jena researchers develop new method for manufacturing tailor-made semiconductor thin films. Organic semiconductor materials are promising key technologies for the development of state-of-the-art optoelectronic components and are used in photovoltaics as well as in sensor technology and microelectronics. In order to produce thin organic semiconductor films automatically and with well-defined properties, researchers – led by Leibniz IPHT in Jena, Germany – have developed a new technological approach for depositing thin films with high molecular precision. The method for manufacturing thin…
Turning plastic waste into versatile building blocks for organic chemistry. Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have developed a new chemical process which upcycles polyesters, including PET in plastic bottles, to morpholine amide, a versatile and valuable building block for synthesizing a vast range of compounds. The reaction is high yield, waste-free, does not require harmful chemicals, and is easily scalable. The team successfully break the often costly closed-loop recycling loop of plastic waste, allowing upcycling to more valuable products. Recycling…
The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT will be presenting the latest research results in additive manufacturing technology at the Fraunhofer joint stand at formnext in Frankfurt am Main from November 7 to 10, 2023. Among other things, the Aachen engineers will be showing additively manufactured sensors that are printed directly onto components and that can provide real-time data for predictive maintenance. A new process makes it possible to seamlessly insert sensors into a component during the additive manufacturing process…
… of fiber composites from rotor blades. Wind turbines typically operate for 20 to 30 years before they are undergoing dismantling and recycling. However, the recycling of fiber composites, especially from the thick-walled rotor blade parts, has been inadequate until now. The prevailing methods involve thermal or mechanical recycling. For a sustainable and holistic recycling process, a research consortium led by Fraunhofer IFAM is pooling their expertise to recover the fibers through pyrolysis. Subsequent surface treatment and quality testing of…
A vital component of the batteries at the heart of electric vehicles and grid energy storage, lithium is key to a clean energy future. But producing the silvery-white metal comes with significant environmental costs. Among them is the vast amount of land and time needed to extract lithium from briny water, with large operations running into the dozens of square miles and often requiring over a year to begin production. Now, researchers at Princeton have developed an extraction technique that…
The findings, based on a single electrochemical process, could help cut emissions from the hardest-to-decarbonize industries, such as steel and cement. In the race to draw down greenhouse gas emissions around the world, scientists at MIT are looking to carbon-capture technologies to decarbonize the most stubborn industrial emitters. Steel, cement, and chemical manufacturing are especially difficult industries to decarbonize, as carbon and fossil fuels are inherent ingredients in their production. Technologies that can capture carbon emissions and convert them into…
Freeze casting processes can be used to produce highly porous and hierarchically structured materials that have a large surface area. They are suitable for a wide variety of applications, as electrodes for batteries, catalyst materials or in biomedicine. Now a team led by Prof. Ulrike G. K. Wegst, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA and Dr. Francisco García Moreno from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have now used the newly developed X-ray tomoscopy technique at the Swiss Light Source of the Paul Scherrer…
Hydrogen from electrolysis with renewable energies is considered a key element of the energy transition. By means of catalysts, water is split into its components hydrogen and oxygen. The electrochemical reaction requires precious metals such as platinum, iridium or ruthenium as catalysts. How the recycling of these metals can be improved has been examined for three years by a European research project with the participation of TU Bergakademie Freiberg. “Since the expensive precious metals in electrolysis cells cannot yet be…
The device is printed all in one go and can pick and release objects. This soft robotic gripper is not only 3D printed in one print, it also doesn’t need any electronics to work. The device was developed by a team of roboticists at the University of California San Diego, in collaboration with researchers at the BASF corporation, who detailed their work in a recent issue of Science Robotics. The researchers wanted to design a soft gripper that would be…
… dry manufacturing process. The lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles are key to a clean energy economy. But their electrodes are usually made using a wet slurry with toxic solvents, an expensive manufacturing approach that poses health and environmental risks. Early experiments at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have revealed significant benefits to a dry battery manufacturing process. This eliminates the solvent while showing promise for delivering a battery that is durable, less weighed down…
LZH researches laser processes for formable hybrid components. Using expensive materials on high-performance components only where they are needed: This is the vision of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 1153 “Tailored Forming”. Scientists at the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) are researching two laser-based processes. Hybrid semi-finished products can save material and costs in production if only those parts of a component are made from a high-priced material that is subject to high demands in later use and therefore has…
Process developed at KIT works at relatively low temperatures and reaches highest resolution for use in optics and semiconductors – publication in Science. Printing of micro- and nanometer-scaled quartz glass structures from pure silicon dioxide opens up many new applications in optics, photonics, and semiconductor technologies. So far, processes have been based on conventional sintering. Temperatures required for sintering silicon dioxide nanoparticles are above 1100°C, which is much too hot for direct deposition onto semiconducting chips. A team headed by…
A new method for cleaning conveyor belts in food production can replace the widely used disinfection chemicals: plasma-treated water is effective against microbial contamination at a shorter exposure time and degrades without envrionmentally hazardous traces. These results were recently published in the journal Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies. Microbial contamination can occur along the entire food processing chain. In order to minimize health risks for consumers, all production processes must be carried out safely. It is therefore common practice…
– Sweet code with laser printing. A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPICI) has developed a method that could make it more difficult to counterfeit products in the future. The new and patented method makes it possible to produce unique, non-copyable fluorescent patterns quickly, environmentally friendly and at low costs. Counterfeiting of electronics, certificates or medicines causes billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide every year. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that…
Ceramics recycling – energy-efficient and low in emissions… Silicon carbide is a popular industrial material for many applications. The extremely hard, heat-resistant material is used for refractory components and semiconductors, for instance. But its production is energy-intensive and emits a lot of carbon dioxide, as well as producing large amounts of by-products and waste products. Researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS have developed RECOSiC©, an especially environmentally friendly recycling process that turns these by-products and waste…
… in the Form of a Pill Finds Weak Spots in Machines and People. Imagine a scenario where you simply just throw in a pill to identify an error—this is now one step closer to reality thanks to the work done by researchers at Fraunhofer IZM in cooperation with Micro Systems Technologies (MST) and Sensry GmbH. As small as a piece of candy, the waterproof IoT sensor can reliably measure the properties of liquids even in hard-to-reach places. This can…
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