Process Engineering

Today`s machines produce paper so rapidly that visual quality control is stretched to its limits. New automated systems with cameras and image analysis algorithms manage this flood of paper with no problem – they can even tackle the job with patterned wood and textiles.

The fastest papermaking machine in the world produces a roll of paper approximately 10 meters wide at the rate of 100 kilometers per hour. In less than 20 seconds the paper would cover an area the size of a soccer field. Impo

Strands of hair accurately measure second hand tobacco smoke exposure, finds research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. And they may be more effective than currently used methods, suggest the authors.

Measuring levels of cotinine, a break-down product of nicotine, in the urine is often used to gauge second hand smoke exposure. But people vary considerably in how much of this substance they metabolise and eliminate, whatever their levels of exposure, and cotinine stays in t

Future generations of electric trains may use considerably less power than they do today thanks to the development of the first high temperature superconducting (HTS) cable. To produce the cable, Scientists at Siemens Corporate Technology in Erlangen, Germany started out with micron-sized particles of a brittle ceramic material. The particles were then embedded in a silver alloy. Through repeated rolling stages and annealing, the material was turned into ribbon-shaped wires. To make a cable from suc