coffeekai
Recycling model for the plastics industry
30/11/2023
Prof Dr Klaus Kümmerer from Leuphana University Lüneburg and his colleague Prof Dr Hans-Josef Endres from Leibniz University Hanover want to develop a sustainable recycling model for the plastics industry.
eakkachaih
Focusing on the human – knowledge and assistance in production
01/11/2023
Providing the best possible support for people in production, transferring their knowledge and maintaining their ability to work for as long as possible is becoming increasingly important for companies, a trend report by Fraunhofer IPK makes clear.
Nick Fewings / Unsplash
Plastic production via advanced recycling lowers GHG emissions
17/10/2023
Producing new plastic by advanced recycling of post-use plastic (PUP), instead of fossil-based production, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and increase the U.S. recycling rate, according to research by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.
Fraunhofer IDMT/Anika Bödecker
Vital data: the whole body on the radar
04/10/2023
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Oldenburg have developed a new method for collecting and analyzing vital signs from the human body by using radar.
Rimidolove
Sustainable materials and recycling in the medical industry
19/09/2023
Recycling instead of disposing sounds easy. But where are the difficulties and what opportunities exist for the industry to become more sustainable, despite strict safety regulations?
Empa
Wood instead of plastic? The dream of sustainable products
06/09/2023
In our everyday life, the desire to use sustainable products instead of those made of plastic is common and can usually be implemented well. But what about medical technology manufacturers? Could they do without plastics at all in order to become more sustainable? After all, they often use a lot of electronics.
K. Selsam/Fraunhofer ISC
CircEl-Paper: Recyclable paper-based electronics
06/06/2023
Billions of tons of electronic waste are produced in the EU every year. With a novel approach, the new EU project "CircEl-Paper" could sustainably improve the recycling process for electronics in the future.
Fraunhofer IAP
Smart materials for aligner therapy
25/04/2023
Clinically effective, custom-made, discreet and comfortable - the demands on aligners for the therapy of malocclusions are high. This also applies to the material of these orthodontic splints. A team has now developed a highly innovative material that enables completely new treatment concepts and reduces costs. The scientists focused on polymers with shape memory properties.
DECHEMA e.V.
Recovery of battery metals - project launch of Metallico
18/04/2023
How can battery metals such as lithium, cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel be recycled in a sustainable way? This question is in the focus of the new EU project METALLICO, in which DECHEMA is also involved. 23 partners from nine countries will optimize five innovative processes for the recovery of those metals and subsequently demonstrate these in case studies on an industrially relevant scale.
Gerd Altmann / Pixabay
Using AI to design innovative materials
11/04/2023
Advanced materials become increasingly complex due to the high requirements they have to fulfill regarding sustainability and applicability. Dierk Raabe and colleagues reviewed the use of artificial intelligence in materials science and the untapped spaces it opens if combined with physics-based simulations.
MPI-IS
Sustainability for biodegradable artificial muscles
28/03/2023
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, at Johannes Kepler University and at University of Colorado Boulder developed fully biodegradable, high-performance artificial muscles. Their research project marks another step towards green technology becoming a lasting trend in the field of soft robotics.
XING Ruirui
Researchers develop biodegradable, biorecyclable glass
22/03/2023
A research group led by Prof. YAN Xuehai from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a family of eco-friendly glass of biological origin fabricated from biologically derived amino acids or peptides.
DITF
Carbon fibers based on wood
14/03/2023
The DITF have developed a sustainable and cost-saving process to produce carbon fibers from lignin. This is an inexpensive raw material that is available in large quantities and is a waste product in paper production. The process offers high energy-saving potential and is particularly environmentally friendly. It uses natural, renewable raw materials and does not require solvents.
Georgia Tech
New ultrafast water disinfection method more environmentally friendly
23/02/2023
Having safe drinking water is vital for public health, but traditional methods of disinfection cause their own environmental problems. Chlorine is cheap and easy to use in centralized water systems, but at the expense of harmful chemical byproducts.
Laura Schirrmeister
Degradation of plastic waste using newly developed biocatalysts
14/02/2023
The plastic materials polyurethane and polyvinyl alcohol can now be degraded under mild conditions with the help of enzymes as biocatalysts. Scientists from the University of Greifswald have developed corresponding methods together with the German company Covestro and teams from Leipzig and Dublin, as recently published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., in two separate articles.