science wire

Every year, TIME publishes a list of the most important inventions of the year.

Farmers once ensured rich harvests of hay by systematically irrigating meadows. In the canton of Zurich, environmentalists are bringing these methods back to life to create a valuable idyll with high biodiversity - using the historic technology of a water scoop wheel, which researchers helped to develop.

Belgian-born Wim Malfait is a trained geologist who once searched for gold on behalf of a mining company. Today, he heads the Building Energy Materials and Components laboratory, which develops, among other things, super-lightweight aerogel insulation materials and materials with heat exchange capabilities.

Nearly half of all fruit and vegetables produced globally are wasted each year, according to the United Nations.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees requires the energy system to be restructured as quickly as possible.

Planting trees is an effective means of combating heat islands in cities. However, it is particularly difficult for young trees to survive in an urban environment. The OST - Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences and Creabeton want to meet this challenge using digital methods. At NEST on the Empa campus, they are testing the prototype of an intelligent tree pit.

For the research institutes Empa and Eawag, Hannes Pichler developed the strategy for an innovative and sustainable campus.

In the FOXIP project, researchers form Empa, EPFL and the Paul Scherrer Institute attempted to print thin-film transistors with metal oxides onto heat-sensitive materials such as paper or PET. The goal was ultimately not achieved, but those involved consider the project a success - because of a new printing ink an a transistor with "memory effect".

This year, Empa will once again be taking part in the Swiss Digital Days with various activities - with exciting insights into different research topics.

In early August 2022, the Aerogel Architecture Award was presented at Empa for the second time. The winning project comes from Germany, while buildings from Switzerland take second and third place.

It is amazing what kind of magical sounds can be elicited from a piece of wood treated with fungi. The biotech violin, whose tonewood has been developed at Empa, is now taking to the concert stage with violinist Irina Pak.

Empa's future laboratory building, currently under construction in Dübendorf on the new co-operate research campus, celebrated its topping-out ceremony on 14 July.

More than 250 million metric tons of sugar beet were harvested worldwide in 2020 and processed into table sugar.

On 20 June, the Association for the Decarbonization of Industry with representatives from industry, energy suppliers, the financial sector and research adopted a joint strategy with the aim of developing holistic approaches for CO2 cuts in industrial applications that can rapidly be implemented. The focus is on high-temperature processes and logistics.

On Thursday, 23 June, stakeholders from research, business, administration and politics met at the Zurich Innovation Park in Dübendorf for the first meeting of the newly created SPIN platform for the promotion of Power-to-X technologies.

Synthetic fuels can make a contribution to achieving climate targets. But can they be used in conventional combustion engines without any problems? This question is being investigated by Empa in collaboration with the Swiss car importer AMAG.

"How to best serve Switzerland" - that is the question behind numerous research projects and innovations from the institutions of the ETH Domain, said Michael Hengartner, President of the ETH Board, on the fringes of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

If Switzerland wants to achieve its goal of being climate neutral by 2050, there are still many hurdles to overcome.

Empa's Annual Report 2021 leads you on a gripping journey through the world of research and innovation; you may be surprised at how broad the term "applied research" is defined at Empa.

Empa is working intensively on solutions to reach the climate targets and is starting on its own doorstep. The new research campus currently under construction - co-operate - will be geared to minimizing greenhouse gas emissions thanks to innovative technologies and with as little compensation as possible in the form of certificates.

As head of Empa's Electron Microscopy Center, Rolf Erni has to balance many tasks: negotiating industrial contracts, promoting young scientists, teaching, supporting researchers at other Empa labs.

Empa and BASE (Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy) launched a data-science driven mobile app that aims to minimize the loss of food production and lower greenhouse gas emissions by enabling access to cooling facilities and allowing smallholder farmers to monitor the shelf-life of their produce.

The research project CircuBAT aims to create a circular business model for the production, application and recycling of lithium-ion batteries used for mobility purposes. Seven Swiss research institutions and 24 companies are joining forces to look for ways to boost sustainability in all stages of a battery's life cycle.

Kurt Heutschi, a senior scientist in Empa's Acoustics / Noise Control lab, explains what noise does and why we perceive sound so differently.

Empa has been committed to creating equal opportunities for women and men for several decades.

Ultra-fast capsules in vacuum tubes: All around the world, companies and research institutes are working on "Hyperloop" concepts.

A newly installed data center in the NEST research building is not only used for data processing, but also helps to heat the entire building.

Switzerland aims to become climate-neutral by 2050 - in other words, to stop emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs). Many strategies on this path to "net zero" involve replacing fossil fuels with electricity - in mobility in the form of electric vehicles and in buildings in the form of heat pumps. In Switzerland, most of the electricity required today comes from nuclear and hydroelectric power plants - technologies with a low carbon footprint.