science wire

Instead of using more and more concrete and steel, a European research team including Empa is focusing on intelligent shapes, digital manufacturing, and alternative binders.

Many bridges in Switzerland were built before the 1980s - and are therefore approaching the end of their service life.

Local and yet exclusive, natural and yet high-tech: Spalted wood combines contradictions. This very special wood is characterized by patterns of fine black lines, which it owes to a fungus.

Our planet is suffering from air pollution, including climate-relevant halogenated gases. Empa researcher Alina Begley ensures that these gases can be detected and measured - even when they are previously unknown or occur only in vanishingly small quantities. Their measurements serve as a long-term basis for regulation.

The FireDrone is designed to deliver real-time data from high-risk areas that are too dangerous for humans and conventional drones.

Epoxy resin is a clear, robust polymer that is widely used - especially as part of fiber-reinforced materials in aviation, the automotive industry, and more.

Automatic charging instead of plugging in cables: In a cooperative project, researchers investigated inductive charging of electric cars.

It is rare for satellites to return to Earth intact after their mission in space - one example is the European satellite EURECA. researchers have studied the satellite using various non-destructive X-ray methods. These could be used in future in the development of reusable space technologies, as well as in aviation and the automotive industry.

What if in future wooden parquet floors were not only aesthetically pleasing, but also equipped with sensors - and could even supply their own electricity?

The research project CircuBAT aims to close the loop between the production, use and recycling of automotive lithium-ion batteries.

Space offers a new perspective on greenhouse gases and air pollutants: In future, European satellites will for the first time provide detailed emission maps, all the way down to the contributions of individual power plants and industrial facilities. The necessary methods and technologies were developed by researchers within international research partnerships.

In construction, wood is often hailed as a sustainable alternative to concrete. However, there is a gap in the structural analysis of timber frame buildings: Walls with window openings are not taken into account for horizontal bracing because of a lack of data on their load-bearing behavior. A project by Empa, Bern University of Applied Sciences, and ETH Zurich, in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FoeN) and industry, aims to change this - using mathematical models and large-scale experiments.

Researchers at Empa, together with international partners, have published the largest open battery dataset to date in a new data format.

What happens to titanium implants once they are inside the human body? Why are they sometimes rejected or even break? Empa researcher Martina Cihova is exploring these questions at the interface between implants and human tissues and cells, where materials science meets medicine.

People want to stay healthy and active for as long as possible. But how young and resilient is our body actually? Researchers at ETH Zurich, Empa, Caltech and the University Hospital Basel now want to make our biological age precise and easy to measure.

We need to make our energy system more sustainable - but what is the best way to achieve this? In order to plan the energy supply of the future, policymakers need sound facts and figures.

Shoulder instabilities are difficult to diagnose as they usually only occur when the shoulder joint is in motion.

How can we accelerate the energy transition in a socially responsible way? researchers propose a publicly funded basic service in solar energy that would increase energy autonomy, create social justice and promote further investment in renewable energies.

On June 16, Empa inaugurated its novel methanation plant. The move-MEGA research project is the first to demonstrate so-called sorption-enhanced methanation at pilot scale - a technology developed at Empa that makes the power-to-gas process more flexible and robust.

Laser-based metal processing enables the automated and precise production of complex components, whether for the automotive industry or for medicine. However, conventional methods require timeand resource-consuming preparations. Researchers at Empa in Thun are using machine learning to make laser processes more precise, more cost-effective and more efficient.

Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich are developing an electromechanical system that can apply mechanical tension to nanomaterials. This could enable electronic components with novel properties for applications in various quantum technologies, for example in information technology, communication, sensor technology and efficient energy conversion.

After a two year-project, Thurplus, the city of Frauenfelds's utility company, and Empa last Wednesday presented the report, Energy Perspectives 2050.

Traditional shingle production has inspired researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich to develop new types of wood-based panels made from split wooden sticks. Thanks to an AI-optimized process, these panels should be suitable for load-bearing components in the future - even if produced from lower-quality wood and tree trunks.

40th anniversary of the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer The Earth's protective ozone layer is recovering - a success story that started 40 years ago with the Vienna Convention. Global atmospheric measurements are crucial for the regulation and monitoring of ozone-depleting substances.

In order to guarantee the security of supply of our future energy system, we need not only an expansion of renewable energies, but also sophisticated control mechanisms that efficiently manage production, distribution and consumption.

Researchers from the nanotech@surfaces laboratory have experimentally recreated another fundamental theoretical model from quantum physics, which goes back to the Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg. The basis for the successful experiment was a kind of "quantum Lego" made of tiny carbon molecules known as nanographenes.

At the end of January, Empa opened a new laboratory that aims to harness quantum effects from carbon.

In a four-year EU project led by Empa, eleven collaborators from research and industry succeeded in significantly improving batteries for electric cars.

Allergies and asthma are widespread diseases that could arise during embryonal development in the womb.