Technology Offerings

Der Schwingungssensor arbeitet mit zwei optischen Sensoren mit Fiber-Bragg-Gittern in Kombination mit einem Biegebalken und einer breitbandigen Lichtquelle. Beim Durchlauf durch die beiden FBG-Sensoren wird die Intensität des optischen Signals in Abhängigkeit der Biegung geändert. Die Intensität des Lichts kann einfach mit einem optischen Detektor gemessen werden. Eine aufwändige Analyse mittels eines
Spektrumanalysators entfällt. Aufgrund der hier gewählten Technologie ist es möglich, Schwingungen bis zu einer Frequenz von 100 kHz zu messen.
Die zur Herstellung notwendigen Technologien gehen nicht über die konventionellen Technologien hinaus,
so dass bei der Produktion des Sensors auf die bekannten Prozesse zurück gegriffen werden kann.

Entwickelt wurde die Technologie des
Schwingungssensors in erster Linie zur
Überwachung von Pipelines. Sie kann
aber in allen Gebieten eingesetzt
werden, in denen mechanische
Schwingungen bis zu 100 kHz detektiert
werden sollen.

An increasing portion of digital devices nowadays is based on multi-core CPUs. Besides consumer gear like smart phones, tablet PCs, game consoles, (smart) TVs etc. multi-core CPU comprising devices are the groundwork in particular for modern automotive,
aerospace and industrial control applications.

To provide high data access rates each core of a typical CPU is equipped with a fast private (L1) cache. All cores commonly share the comparably slow main memory (and L2 cache). To avoid data inconsistencies due to multiple write accesses the cache controllers
implement cache coherence protocols. However, the communication Overhead increases with the number of CPU cores.

This leads to an increase of the necessary chip area as well as to an increase of power consumption.

Furthermore automotive, aerospace and industrial control applications demand hard real-time abilities. But the known cache coherence arrangements hardly provide this hard real-time functionality.

All in all permanently increasing demands
concerning processing speed, battery operation time, chip miniaturization level and particularly hard real-time constraints challenge the developers to offer a simple and reliable solution.

The novel approach to meet this market demand is the On-demand Coherent Cache (ODC²) recently developed at the Robotics Research Institute of the TU Dortmund University.

Lithium-Ion-batteries often comprise collector foils made of chemically pre-treated aluminium. The chemical pre-treatment of such aluminium collector foils can be superseded by a plasma treatment of raw aluminium. More general, the patented method allows reduction of the contact resistance of different metal substrates.

The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is an important process to convert coal, natural gas and biomass to a variety of hydrocarbon products and oxygenates of different chain length.

In this modified Fischer-Tropsch process valuable nitrogen or phosphorous containing products of varying chain length are produced via co-feeding of suitable gases such as ammonia. These nitrogen-containing products include amines but also nitriles, amides and formamides. Amines and nitriles are important base chemicals and they are typically produced from oxygenates precursors which themselves are derived from olefins. This process therefore eliminates the use of a two-step process. Similarly phosphorous containing compounds can be produced. Moreover, the formation of oxygenates including carboxylic acids which are undesired products of the synthesis can be fully suppressed with the modified process. Notably this can be achieved with no or tolerable loss of catalyst activity.

Researchers at the University of Bremen have developed a simple method for producing zinc oxide (ZnO) nan-owires. The ZnO nanowires provide the basis for a new generation of environmentally friendly LEDs with im-proved properties.
A simple way of describing this production method would be as a baking recipe: salts and water are mixed, put into a pressure tank and placed in an oven for several hours.
By altering the temperature during the production process, different conductivities (n- and p-conducting) can be embossed to the individual nanowires and different light spectra can be defined by combining them with each other.
The production of conventional LEDs based on gallium compounds is harmful to health and calls for huge technical effort.
Zinc oxide can be produced in large quantities in an easy, cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner. It comprises efficient light-matter interaction and is transparent across almost the entire spectral range. The new LEDs have the innate potential to produce white light. Emissions in the UV range are also possible.
A prototype of the ZnO nanowire LED has been tested successfully in the laboratory. A development or cooperation partner is now being sought.

There is no satisfactory therapy to prevent the loss of synapses, axons or neurons in neurodegenerative diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. Several studies demonstrate that this neuronal damage is partly mediated by proinflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species released by tissue macrophages and microglia.

The present invention allows preventing the production of proinflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species through the application of low molecular weight polysialic acid PSA-20. In vitro studies showed that PSA-20 prevents the activation of human macrophages and human microglia thereby inhibiting the production of cytotoxic proinflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species. It has been shown, that this anti-inflammatory effect is mediated through the human lineage specific receptor Siglec-11.