Technology Offerings

Modern technology enables agricultural machinery to perform better and more efficiently under changing conditions at any time. It is important that appropriate procedures secure the profitability of farmland and increase the efficiency of crop production. For this purpose detailed information on all aspects of the production process are necessary. An important part of this is a spatially resolved measurement of crop yields in real time.

The technologies presented here are inventions of Prof. Dr. Karl Wild at the University of Applied Sciences Dresden at the Faculty of Agriculture/Environment/Chemistry. Professor Karl Wild is engaged in the field “Technology in Horticulture and Agriculture”. The techniques are developments that meet the current requirements of “Smart Farming”. They employ a variety of variables / data in the harvesting process and enable the detection of the crop yield in order to optimize crop yields.
This presentation outlines five techniques for volumetric and mass flow detection and for the determination of the density of cereals as a basis for a local yield determination in harvesting machines.

The unique physical and chemical properties arising
from graphene may lead to remarkable advantages in the fields of electronics and energy storage devices. Its superior electronic conductivity and the single-to few-atoms thickness are particularly appealing for the use as anode material for lithium-ion batteries. Graphene ́s electrochemical properties, relevant for its use in batteries, are strongly depending on its synthesis.
The innovative method object of this invention is a
n ionic liquid-assisted microwave exfoliation of expanded graphite. It allows the bulk production of high-quality multilayer crystalline graphene flakes. Used as anode material in lithium-ion batteries, at low temperatures (< 0°C) it shows advanced lithium-ion storage performance, when compared with commercially available graphite.

At the University of Konstanz, Germany, a new method for wiring rear contact solar cells has been developed, in particular suited for wire-based interconnection of IBC solar cells. For wiring, narrow tabbing or wire (e.g. highly conductive copper wire), which is run orthogonally to the contact fingers, is used. Half of the wires are led through very small gaps in the p contacts to connect to the n contacts. The other half is led through gaps in the n contacts, connecting to the p contacts.

Many biological processes depend on oligomeric protein-protein interactions (PPI). However, state-of-the-art in vivo PPI techniques focus on analysing binary interactions (i.e. the Split-Ubiquitin System (SUS)1). The SUS can also be used to analyse binding of three proteins in the so-called SUS Bridge Assay (SUB)2 – see Figure A. Nevertheless, this assay makes an unbiased screening approach cumbersome and its low efficiency restricts the identification of meaningful candidates.
Here, we present the first screening system in yeast that permits high-throughput screening of cDNA libraries for ternary binding partners of a known interaction couple. This is achieved by a unique combination of SUB and yeast mating. Technical prerequisites are special “2in1”-vectors3, which allow simultaneous transformation of “Bait I” and “Bait II” on a single plasmid in yeast of one mating type and the cDNA library in the other – see Figure B.

In cooperation with Italian partners, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences recently developed a new type of anti-fouling coating on membranes with scalable retention to improve the quality of purified water while reducing the costs involved in cleaning, maintaining and replacing the membranes. Pore sizes and thus separation efficiency and chemical properties of the novel PBM coated membrane surface can be individually adjusted to the composition of the water to be purified. The PBM coated ultrafiltration membranes were successfully tested in membrane bioreactor (MBR) systems using real wastewater.

The new Soft Switching Three Level Inverter (S3L – Inverter) is of striking simplicity and is therefore inexpensive. Because of the underlying principle, it works without losses and thus with maximum efficiency. The inverter is easily controlled, has EMC friendly inherent di/dt- and du/dt limitation, and can be built using low-cost standard semiconductors.

Field of use: electric drives, solar power inverter, wind power inverter, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).