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Environment - Materials Science - 23.06.2021 
Harvesting drinking water from humidity around the clock
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a condenser for countries where water is in short supply. Theirs is the first zero-energy solution for harvesting water from the atmosphere throughout the 24-hour daily cycle. It relies on a self-cooling surface and a special radiation shield. Fresh water is scarce in many parts of the world and must be obtained at great expense.
Materials Science - Health - 03.06.2021
Innovation - Materials Science - 28.05.2021
Physics - Materials Science - 05.05.2021 
A material-keyboard made of graphene
Researchers at ETH Zurich have succeeded in turning specially prepared graphene flakes either into insulators or into superconductors by applying an electric voltage. This technique even works locally, meaning that in the same graphene flake regions with completely different physical properties can be realized side by side.
Physics - Materials Science - 22.04.2021
Materials Science - Chemistry - 20.04.2021 
Perovskite solar cells exceed 25% power-conversion efficiency
Physical chemists and chemical engineers led by EPFL have used a chemical tweak to push the power-conversion efficiency and operational stability of perovskite solar cells to 25.6% and at least 450 hours respectively. Perovskites are hybrid compounds that can be made from metal halides and organic constituents.
Materials Science - Economics - 02.04.2021
Materials Science - 23.03.2021 
Knitting roads
Empa scientists are investigating how roads could be reinforced with simple means and recycled easily after use. Their tools are a robot and a few meters of string. A robotic arm lays out a string in a mandala-like pattern on a bed of gravel. What appears to be a contemporary art performance is basic research that explores new ways in road construction.
Materials Science - Chemistry - 18.03.2021 
The invisible keyhole
Hard times for burglars and safecrackers: Empa researchers have developed an invisible "keyhole" made of printed, transparent electronics. Only authorized persons know where to enter the access code. At first glance, Empa researcher Evgeniia Gilshtein's idea seems inconspicuous - or more precisely, invisible.
Materials Science - Chemistry - 15.03.2021 
Voltage from wood
Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have chemically modified wood and made it more compressible, turning it into a mini-generator. When compressed, it generates an electrical voltage. Such wood could serve as a biosensor or as a building material that harvests energy. As Ingo Burgert and his team at ETH Zurich and Empa have proven time and again: wood is so much more than just a building material.
Materials Science - Environment - 15.03.2021 
Voltage from the parquet
Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich have made wood compressible and turned it into a micro-generator. When it is loaded, an electrical voltage is generated. In this way, the wood can serve as a bio-sensor - or generate usable energy. The latest highlight: To ensure that the process does not require aggressive chemicals, naturally occurring wood-degrading fungi take over the task of modifying the wood.
Environment - Materials Science - 04.03.2021 
Energy house-keeping
Energy management in a house with a solar system is becoming increasingly complex: When do I turn on the heating so that it is nice and cosy in the evening? How much electricity can the hot water tank hold? Will there still be enough energy for the electric car? Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help solve the problem: Researchers at Empa developed an AI control system that can learn all these tasks - and save more than 25 percent energy in the process.
Materials Science - Environment - 03.03.2021 
Graphene filter makes carbon capture more efficient and cheaper
Chemical engineers at EPFL have developed a graphene filter for carbon capture that surpasses the efficiency of commercial capture technologies, and can reduce the cost carbon capture down to $30 per ton of carbon dioxide. One of the main culprits of global warming is the vast amount of carbon dioxide pumped out into the atmosphere mostly from burning fossil fuels and the production of steel and cement.
Physics - Materials Science - 22.02.2021 
Concept for a new storage medium
Physicists from Switzerland, Germany and Ukraine have proposed an innovative new data storage medium. The technique is based on specific properties of antiferromagnetic materials that had previously resisted experimental examination. Using nanoscale quantum sensors, an international research team has succeeded in exploring certain previously uncharted physical properties of an antiferromagnetic material.
Physics - Materials Science - 17.02.2021 
Novel sandwich technology improves sensitivity of rapid tests
Scientists have developed a method for boosting the sensitivity of rapid-detection tests like those used for the new coronavirus. The results of their feasibility study have just been published in Nano Letters. Pregnancy tests and rapid-detection tests for the new coronavirus work in the same way. They contain a surface - usually made of metal - on which chemical nanosensors detect specific compounds in a sample of urine, saliva or blood that indicate the presence of a given protein or part of a virus.
Materials Science - Physics - 08.02.2021
Health - Materials Science - 04.02.2021 
Safe to cross: low risk of coronavirus infection from high-touch surfaces
Surfaces which are frequently touched by many different people may be contaminated with the coronavirus, but the risk of infection via this route is low. However, regular collection of samples from door handles, buttons or keypads could be useful for monitoring the course of the pandemic. Have you ever tried pressing the button at a pedestrian crossing with your elbow?
Health - Materials Science - 26.01.2021 
Heavy charge against water germs
Removing pathogens from drinking water is especially difficult when the germs are too tiny to be caught by conventional filters. Researchers at Empa and Eawag are developing new materials and processes to free water from pathogenic microorganisms such as viruses. Water is life, biology teaches us. Reality teaches us something different: Water contaminated with pathogens causes hundreds of thousands of deaths each year in places where water treatment is lacking or poorly functioning.
Materials Science - Computer Science - 21.01.2021 
New metamaterial offers reprogrammable properties
Scientists have developed a metamaterial whose mechanical properties can be reprogrammed on demand and whose internal structure can be modified by applying a magnetic field. Over the past 20 years, scientists have been developing metamaterials, or materials that don't occur naturally and whose mechanical properties result from their designed structure rather than their chemical composition.
Materials Science - 22.12.2020 
50 years old and as good as new
Since 1970 a worldwide unique test has been running in the Empa testing hall in Dübendorf, in which the long-term behaviour of bonded steel reinforcements on a concrete beam is being investigated. Investigations such as these have contributed to the fact that adhesive-bonded reinforcement is now state of the art as a strengthening method and that engineers have confidence in this retrofitting method.
Materials Science
Results 61 - 80 of 349.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a condenser for countries where water is in short supply. Theirs is the first zero-energy solution for harvesting water from the atmosphere throughout the 24-hour daily cycle. It relies on a self-cooling surface and a special radiation shield. Fresh water is scarce in many parts of the world and must be obtained at great expense.
Filter membrane renders viruses harmless
Researchers at ETH Zurich are developing a new filter membrane that is highly efficient at filtering and inactivating a wide variety of air-borne and water-borne viruses. Made from ecologically sound materials, the membrane has an appropriately good environmental footprint. Viruses can spread not only via droplets or aerosols like the new coronavirus, but in water, too.
Researchers at ETH Zurich are developing a new filter membrane that is highly efficient at filtering and inactivating a wide variety of air-borne and water-borne viruses. Made from ecologically sound materials, the membrane has an appropriately good environmental footprint. Viruses can spread not only via droplets or aerosols like the new coronavirus, but in water, too.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have succeeded in turning specially prepared graphene flakes either into insulators or into superconductors by applying an electric voltage. This technique even works locally, meaning that in the same graphene flake regions with completely different physical properties can be realized side by side.
Uniquely sharp X-ray view
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have succeeded for the first time in looking inside materials using the method of transient grating spectroscopy with ultrafast X-rays at SwissFEL. The experiment at PSI is a milestone in observing processes in the world of atoms. The researchers are publishing their research results today .
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have succeeded for the first time in looking inside materials using the method of transient grating spectroscopy with ultrafast X-rays at SwissFEL. The experiment at PSI is a milestone in observing processes in the world of atoms. The researchers are publishing their research results today .
Physical chemists and chemical engineers led by EPFL have used a chemical tweak to push the power-conversion efficiency and operational stability of perovskite solar cells to 25.6% and at least 450 hours respectively. Perovskites are hybrid compounds that can be made from metal halides and organic constituents.
Empa scientists are investigating how roads could be reinforced with simple means and recycled easily after use. Their tools are a robot and a few meters of string. A robotic arm lays out a string in a mandala-like pattern on a bed of gravel. What appears to be a contemporary art performance is basic research that explores new ways in road construction.
Hard times for burglars and safecrackers: Empa researchers have developed an invisible "keyhole" made of printed, transparent electronics. Only authorized persons know where to enter the access code. At first glance, Empa researcher Evgeniia Gilshtein's idea seems inconspicuous - or more precisely, invisible.
Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have chemically modified wood and made it more compressible, turning it into a mini-generator. When compressed, it generates an electrical voltage. Such wood could serve as a biosensor or as a building material that harvests energy. As Ingo Burgert and his team at ETH Zurich and Empa have proven time and again: wood is so much more than just a building material.
Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich have made wood compressible and turned it into a micro-generator. When it is loaded, an electrical voltage is generated. In this way, the wood can serve as a bio-sensor - or generate usable energy. The latest highlight: To ensure that the process does not require aggressive chemicals, naturally occurring wood-degrading fungi take over the task of modifying the wood.
Energy management in a house with a solar system is becoming increasingly complex: When do I turn on the heating so that it is nice and cosy in the evening? How much electricity can the hot water tank hold? Will there still be enough energy for the electric car? Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help solve the problem: Researchers at Empa developed an AI control system that can learn all these tasks - and save more than 25 percent energy in the process.
Chemical engineers at EPFL have developed a graphene filter for carbon capture that surpasses the efficiency of commercial capture technologies, and can reduce the cost carbon capture down to $30 per ton of carbon dioxide. One of the main culprits of global warming is the vast amount of carbon dioxide pumped out into the atmosphere mostly from burning fossil fuels and the production of steel and cement.
Physicists from Switzerland, Germany and Ukraine have proposed an innovative new data storage medium. The technique is based on specific properties of antiferromagnetic materials that had previously resisted experimental examination. Using nanoscale quantum sensors, an international research team has succeeded in exploring certain previously uncharted physical properties of an antiferromagnetic material.
Scientists have developed a method for boosting the sensitivity of rapid-detection tests like those used for the new coronavirus. The results of their feasibility study have just been published in Nano Letters. Pregnancy tests and rapid-detection tests for the new coronavirus work in the same way. They contain a surface - usually made of metal - on which chemical nanosensors detect specific compounds in a sample of urine, saliva or blood that indicate the presence of a given protein or part of a virus.
Droplets perform daredevil feats on gel surfaces
Scientists have succeeded in making droplets flow just as fast on soft surfaces as on hard ones by changing the surface texture. Welcome to the amazing world of soft substrates. These materials are made of silicon gels and have the same texture as panna cotta - but without the delicious flavor. They are used in a range of applications, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, because their biocompatible and antiadhesive properties make them resistant to corrosion and bacterial contamination.
Scientists have succeeded in making droplets flow just as fast on soft surfaces as on hard ones by changing the surface texture. Welcome to the amazing world of soft substrates. These materials are made of silicon gels and have the same texture as panna cotta - but without the delicious flavor. They are used in a range of applications, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, because their biocompatible and antiadhesive properties make them resistant to corrosion and bacterial contamination.
Surfaces which are frequently touched by many different people may be contaminated with the coronavirus, but the risk of infection via this route is low. However, regular collection of samples from door handles, buttons or keypads could be useful for monitoring the course of the pandemic. Have you ever tried pressing the button at a pedestrian crossing with your elbow?
Removing pathogens from drinking water is especially difficult when the germs are too tiny to be caught by conventional filters. Researchers at Empa and Eawag are developing new materials and processes to free water from pathogenic microorganisms such as viruses. Water is life, biology teaches us. Reality teaches us something different: Water contaminated with pathogens causes hundreds of thousands of deaths each year in places where water treatment is lacking or poorly functioning.
Scientists have developed a metamaterial whose mechanical properties can be reprogrammed on demand and whose internal structure can be modified by applying a magnetic field. Over the past 20 years, scientists have been developing metamaterials, or materials that don't occur naturally and whose mechanical properties result from their designed structure rather than their chemical composition.
Since 1970 a worldwide unique test has been running in the Empa testing hall in Dübendorf, in which the long-term behaviour of bonded steel reinforcements on a concrete beam is being investigated. Investigations such as these have contributed to the fact that adhesive-bonded reinforcement is now state of the art as a strengthening method and that engineers have confidence in this retrofitting method.
