news 2019

Markus Niederberger's team of researchers at ETH has used stretchable materials to develop a battery that can be bent, stretched and twisted. For applications in bendable electronic devices, this is precisely the kind of battery they need. Today's electronics industry is increasingly focusing on computers or smartphones with screens that can be folded or rolled.

Researchers from ETH Zurich, Empa and the University of Stuttgart have developed a new technique involving a controlled drying process that makes wooden panels bend into a pre-set shape without the use of any mechanical force. Wood is a renewable resource and a popular, sustainable construction material.

Researchers at EPFL and the University of Bern have developed a groundbreaking method for studying the electrical signals of cardiac muscle cells. The technology has numerous potential applications in basic and applied research - such as improving the search for mechanisms underlying cardiac arrhythmias.

A team of EPFL researchers has set itself the lofty goal of building the biggest-ever database that digitizes the visual appearance of all natural and synthetic materials in the world.

ETH researchers have succeeded in elucidating how and at what rate steel corrodes in a variety of porous materials. Their findings help enable the breakthrough of new, environmentally friendly types of cement. The rate at which steel corrodes in concrete or other porous materials is crucial to a large number of technological applications, such as underground pipelines or steel-reinforced concrete bridges.

Adjusting the thermal conductivity of materials is one of the challenges nanoscience is currently facing. Together with colleagues from the Netherlands and Spain, researchers from the University of Basel have shown that the atomic vibrations that determine heat generation in nanowires can be controlled through the arrangement of atoms alone.

In order to estimate for the first time the exact extent of plastic pollution in Switzerland, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) has mandated Empa researchers to calculate how much plastic gets into the environment. Empa has analyzed the seven most frequently used types of plastic. According to the study, more than 5000 tons of plastic are discharged into the environment every year.

Biofilms are enormously resistant accumulations of germs, which can cause serious problems, especially in hospitals. Like a single large creature, they can spread within wounds or colonize implants or biomedical products. With novel materials and surfaces researchers intend to combat the sturdy pathogens.

Can analytical methods from materials science help us better understand human bones' A research team at Empa in Thun is pursuing precisely this approach. Osteoporosis is a wide­spread disease. Every third woman and every fifth man are affected by bone loss with ad­vanc­ing age. A frequent consequence of this is a fracture of the femoral neck - a painful injury that massively impairs the quality of life of those affected.

The human heart still poses great challenges to modern medicine. More than ten million people in Europe suffer from heart failure, and quite a few of them need a donor organ. Artificial heart pumps are used to bridge the waiting time, but complications are not uncommon. The "Zurich Heart" project, in which Empa is a partner, is developing solutions.

Poorly healing wounds and severe scarring are more than just a cosmetic problem; they can significantly impair a person's mobility and health. Empa researchers have now developed a foam that is supposed to prevent excessive scarring and help wounds to heal quickly. An essential ingredient: the yellow ginger tumeric.

Physiological parameters in our blood can be determined without painful punctures. Empa researchers are currently working with a Canadian team to develop flexible, biocompatible nanocellulose sensors that can be attached to the skin. The 3D-printed analytic chips made of renewable raw materials will even be biodegradable in future.

Researchers bring diurnal and seasonal variations into the lab to test the performance of perovskite solar cells under realistic conditions. It was only ten years ago that metal-halide perovskites were discovered to be photovoltaic materials. Today, perovskite solar cells made are almost as efficient as the best conventional silicon ones, and there is much hope that they will become a highly efficient and low-cost alternative, as they can be manufactured by rather simple and fast methods like printing.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and ETH Zurich have developed a new material whose shape memory is activated by magnetism. It retains a given shape when it is put into a magnetic field. It is a composite material consisting of two components. What is special about the new material is that, unlike previous shape-memory materials, it consists of a polymer and droplets of a so-called magnetorheological fluid embedded in it.

Since last week there is a unique wooden building in the Remstal near Stuttgart: a tower made of self-formed spruce boards. The method, which has been developed at Empa and ETH Zurich, uses the natural swelling and shrinking of wood under the influence of moisture and thus enables a new and unexpected architecture for the construction with the renewable and sustainable resource of wood.

Researchers at EPFL are working on a technology to exploit osmotic energy - a source of power that's naturally available at estuaries, where fresh water comes into contact with seawater. In a laboratory experiment, the team reproduced the real-world conditions that occur where rivers meet the sea (pH and salt concentration) and showed that, by shining light on a system comprising salt, water and a membrane three atoms thick, it was possible to optimize electricity production.

Sea birds dying in agony with a belly full of plastic garbage; plastic accumulations as big as islands: Virtually everyone has seen pictures like these today. But there are also plastic particles that are barely visible to the eye - microplastics. The danger posed by these tiny particles has hardly been researched to date.

Within the scope of National Research Programme "Energy Turnaround" (NRP 70), researchers studied photovoltaic systems integrated into the roofs and façades (BIPV) of existing buildings from the point of view of aesthetic, ecological and economic criteria. Their findings: all developers and architects could use this technology for the renovation of existing buildings.

In the planned project "Re-FREAM" designers develop new and innovative fashion concepts in cooperation with researchers from all over Europe and completely rethink processes, traditions, production methods as well as design and functionality of clothing. Empa is also involved as a research partner. "We live in the most exciting era of mankind", write the initiators of the "Re-FREAM" project on their website.

Researchers at PSI have investigated a novel crystalline material that exhibits electronic properties that have never been seen before. It is a crystal of aluminum and platinum atoms arranged in a special way. In the symmetrically repeating unit cells of this crystal, individual atoms were offset from each other in such a way that they - as connected in the mind's eye - followed the shape of a spiral staircase.