Five DFG-funded research centers harness international research synergies and foster the development of early career researchers. The “Research Network for Advancing Architecture, Engineering and Construction” (AdvanceAEC) brings together international researchers who strive to advance architecture, engineering and construction through digital technologies and an interdisciplinary approach. It aims to address the multifaceted ecological, economic and socio-cultural challenges the built environment is facing. Involved on the part of the University of Stuttgart are the Cluster of Excellence EXC 2120 (Integrative Computational Design…

A porous organic material created at KAUST could significantly improve energy storage and delivery by supercapacitors, which are devices that are able to deliver quick and powerful bursts of energy. Supercapacitors use technology that is significantly different from the reversible chemical reactions used in rechargeable batteries. They store electrical energy by building up a separation of positive and electric charge and this ability enables them to supply quick bursts of energy needed, for example, to power the acceleration of electric…

Can tomorrow’s energy supply be freed of CO2 Fraunhofer researchers want to answer that question with a consortium of partners in ZO.RRO, a joint project underway in the German state of Thuringia. They are developing a complex IT ecosystem to facilitate the systemic exit from fossil fuels – a package of IT solutions designed to slash greenhouse gas emissions. This research venture centers on system services, which account for up to 20 percent of CO2 emissins. Germany is off to…

A hybrid implant coating made from antibacterial silver and an antibiotic will protect patients from infection in the future. The antibiotic is tailored to the patient’s unique requirements for even better protection. The AntiSelectInfekt project came about in collaboration with a research team from Charité-Universtitätsmedizin Berlin. Anyone who now receives an artificial knee, shoulder or hip joint at the hospital can expect the best-possible treatment and cutting-edge medicine. But implantation is not without its risks. On average, 1 to 2…

Rice University lab detours potential environmental hazard into useful material. Plastic waste comes back in black as pristine graphene, thanks to ACDC. That’s what Rice University scientists call the process they employed to make efficient use of waste plastic that would otherwise add to the planet’s environmental woes. In this instance, the lab of Rice chemist James Tour modified its method to make flash graphene to enhance it for recycling plastic into graphene. The lab’s study appears in the American…

Quantum dot logic circuits provide the long-sought building blocks for innovative devices, including printable electronics, flexible displays, and medical diagnostics. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and their collaborators from the University of California, Irvine have created fundamental electronic building blocks out of tiny structures known as quantum dots and used them to assemble functional logic circuits. The innovation promises a cheaper and manufacturing-friendly approach to complex electronic devices that can be fabricated in a chemistry laboratory via simple, solution-based…

A spot of pressure enables chemical conversion to hardened 2D material. Marrying two layers of graphene is an easy route to the blissful formation of nanoscale diamond, but sometimes thicker is better. While it may only take a bit of heat to turn a treated bilayer of the ultrathin material into a cubic lattice of diamane, a bit of pressure in just the right place can convert few-layer graphene as well. The otherwise chemically driven process is theoretically possible according…

Graphene and other single-atom-thick substances are a category of wonder materials, with researchers the world over investigating their electronic properties for potential applications in technologies as diverse as solar cells, novel semiconductors, sensors, and energy storage. The greatest challenge for the design of these single-layer or 2D materials into all their myriad potential uses is the need for an atom-by-atom perfection and uniformity that can be difficult and painstaking to achieve at such small scales, and difficult to assess as…

Advance could lead to new generation of ultrafast computer chips that retain data even when there is no power. Spintronic devices are attractive alternatives to conventional computer chips, providing digital information storage that is highly energy efficient and also relatively easy to manufacture on a large scale. However, these devices, which rely on magnetic memory, are still hindered by their relatively slow speeds, compared to conventional electronic chips. In a paper published in the journal Nature Electronics, an international team…

A collaboration of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Germany and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia have recently scrutinized organic solar cells and derived design rules for light-absorbing dyes that can help to make these cells more efficient, while tailoring the absorption spectrum of the cells to the needs of the chosen application. Most of us are familiar with silicon solar cells, which can be found on the…

TU Graz algorithm-based method provides a basis for decisions on the correct amount of tamping measures on tracks, thus reducing their life-cycle costs by up to 20 per cent. Train journeys should be safe and comfortable, and track systems are crucial to this. So-called “tamping” (positioning, compacting and stabilizing) of the ballast in the track bed is one of the most important maintenance tasks in the railway industry. Special tamping machines lift the tracks, align them precisely and tamp the…

Scientists have created synthetic soft surfaces with tongue-like textures for the first time using 3D printing, opening new possibilities for testing oral processing properties of food, nutritional technologies, pharmaceutics and dry mouth therapies. UK scientists led by the University of Leeds in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh have replicated the highly sophisticated surface design of a human tongue and demonstrated that their printed synthetic silicone structure mimics the topology, elasticity and wettability of the tongue’s surface. These factors are…

An international multi-institution team of scientists has synthesized graphene nanoribbons – ultrathin strips of carbon atoms – on a titanium dioxide surface using an atomically precise method that removes a barrier for custom-designed carbon nanostructures required for quantum information sciences. Graphene is composed of single-atom-thick layers of carbon taking on ultralight, conductive and extremely strong mechanical characteristics. The popularly studied material holds promise to transform electronics and information science because of its highly tunable electronic, optical and transport properties. When…

Researchers at National University of Science and Technology MISIS (NUST MISIS) have managed to develop a unique method to process bulk metallic glasses. According to the authors of the study, they have managed to find processing conditions that significantly improve the quality of this promising material. The research results were published in Journal of Alloys and Compounds. Metallic glasses (amorphous metals) are materials which, unlike crystalline forms, don’t have a long range atomic order. According to the scientists, this makes…

This is the first report for the syntheses of water-soluble polyimides which are Interestingly derived from bio-based resources, showing high transparency, tunable mechanical strength and the highest thermoresistance in water-soluble polymers reported ever. Water-soluble polymers are of great interest in many areas of soft materials. These soft materials have been widely used in application related to aqueous solutions, such as dispersants, aggregation agents, thickeners, moisturizers, binders, and hydrogels. With increase in global awareness about environmental concerns, the importance of water-soluble…

The dynamic change in root growth of plants plays an important role in their adjustment to soil conditions. Depending on the location, nutrients or moisture can be found in higher or lower soil layers. This is why, depending on the situation, a short or a long root is advantageous. Caroline Gutjahr, Professor of Plant Genetics at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and her team investigate how plant hormones influence the growth of roots. Roots are essential for reaching water…