Blog

How do we sustainably supply a growing human population on our planet with food, energy and water? How useful are decentralized, regional solutions for this? The vision of a future factory in Lusatia aims to provide answers to questions like these. In an interview, our experts Prof. Michael Stelter and Dr. Burkhardt Faßauer explain exactly how their water management concepts will be implemented.

Global shipping, powered in most cases with toxic bunker fuel, is a pollutant which has received little attention. At IKTS, alternative, eco-friendly ship propulsion systems are being developed with stakeholders of the shipping industry.

Even though the earth is known as the “blue planet”, only 2.5 % of its water is freshwater. And of this portion only a third can be used as drinking water. The resource is scarce and unevenly distributed: More than 2 billion people on earth live without access to clean water at home. To highlight this water crisis, the United Nations host World Water Day every year on March 22, accompanied by campaigns and activities of governmental and non-governmental organizations. We talked to Dr. Patrick Bräutigam, group manager of the working group “Reaction Engineering Water” at IKTS and head of the group “Water Technology” at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena about how research institutions can contribute to the fight against the water crisis, why the resource must also be protected in industrialized countries and which technologies will become relevant in the future.

In a matter of life and death, every minute counts. If patients are treated on-site, for example at the scene of an accident, their chances of survival are increased significantly. To ensure that emergency physicians can make the right diagnosis quickly, mobile ultrasound equipment is used, among other things. This means that necessary treatment steps can be initiated at the scene of the accident.

Surely you too have asked yourself whether batteries for e-mobility are really safe; especially when they are in your own car. In order to perform quality assurance faster and more efficiently in the future, we are developing x-ray and thermography systems with which individual battery components can already be inspected during production.

Fit and agile until old age. We all dream of it. However, the older people get, the more likely the need for medicines will rise. It is not only age but also the increase in mental and psychosomatic illnesses or the intake of hormones that increases the need for pharmaceutical preparations. And take a loot at our lifestyle: the use of antibiotics in factory farming for meat fattening does its own thing.

Water covers two thirds of the earth's surface, making our earth the blue planet. Oceans and seas provide half of the oxygen we breathe and absorb one third of the carbon dioxide we produce. They control the climate, are economic and living space.

We Germans love our "liquid bread". Especially in a sociable Christmassy round a blond is something fine! By the way: We Germans believe that we are THE beer nation. However, this is not quite true. Because at least as far as drinking is concerned, Czechs consume more. But where does beer come from? And can the rather perfect brewing process still be further optimized?

So Rumplestiltskin's dream does come true after all! Straw can be turned into today’s gold: energy. As a biogenic waste material, straw contributes to a sustainable energy balance and supports the path towards energy production from predominantly renewable energies. It also reduces the amount of maize or other products that should be used to feed the world's hunger and not to provide energy. How is electricity produced from straw, you ask? Let us take a look at it.

Do you like milk? Many among us like it. On average, each of us drank about 52 litres in 2015 - according to figures from the German Dairy Industry Association. Not enough for that. On top of that came 6 kilograms of butter, 17 kilograms of yoghurt and 25 kilograms of cheese per head. During the production of the various dairy products, residual materials are produced that cause high disposal costs, either half or unused. A pity about that! Because they are valuable, provided we can feed them into a closed recycling circuit.

Do you often drive over bridges? Even over those made of steel and reinforced concrete? Have you ever wondered how these or other steel structures are maintained? Fraunhofer IKTS, SURAGUS GmbH and dresden elektronik jointly developed the mobile Barkhausen Noise Analyzer, a pilot system for quality control of structural steel, for this purpose.

Thanks to heatable pavement slabs, annoying snow-shoveling will soon be a thing of the past.

The proportion of electronic components in cars is constantly increasing. Without reliable electronics, there will be no safety and comfort in road traffic in the future. Examples of innovative vehicle functions are automated driving and infotainment. In addition, there are new drive systems such as hybrid and electric motors and all-encompassing interconnection. In order to assess the suitability of semiconductor components of the latest technologies, the challenges must be identified and solution approaches evaluated. Nanoanalytics provides a powerful toolkit for this purpose.

Generation Y. I belong to this generation. Some things are imputed to us. A much quoted statement is: We are becoming more environmentally conscious again. In all areas of my life I also try to use natural products and pay attention to the environment.This is particularly important to me in the field of cosmetics, because everyone, including you, uses cosmetics every day. And that is not little: just pause for a moment and think about how many cosmetic products you yourself own and use every day. This is exactly why I prefer natural cosmetics to conventional cosmetics.

In this German video Dr. Matthias Ahlhelm introduces himself and his research area at Fraunhofer IKTS. Shaping and degradable materials, such as ceramic biomaterials, play a decisive role. Matthias Ahlhelm gives you a brief insight into how he and his colleagues produce personalized bone implants from biomaterials in a combination of 3D printing and freeze foaming.

Beautiful, modern, ecological, economical, decentralized! This is how the acronym "smood" – the living of the future – could also be described. But actually "smood" stands for "smart neighborhood". This refers to living and working in a building-intelligent, environmentally friendly neighborhood surrounded by "green energy". Because it is precisely this "green energy" that is the core of "smood".

Offshore wind farms are among the most reliable renewable energy sources. A turbine consists of four main sections: the rotor section, tower, transition piece with working platform and the foundation structure. The foundation structure anchors the turbine stably in the seabed. Bianca Weihnacht and her interdisciplinary team monitor the condition of the foundation structure under water automatically in real time with their ultrasonic sensor system. This enables them to detect and localize cracks in the weld seam between the transition piece and the foundation structure at an early stage. How exactly? Bianca Weihnacht will tell you in a short video and interview.

The employee portrait on Tuesday. In our #diensttalk segment, employees give a small glimpse behind the scenes of Europe's largest institution for ceramics research and reveal what drives them in their research.

The "Plataforma Solar de Almería" in Andalusia is the world's largest research centre for high-temperature solar technology. This is where the EU project CAPTure (Competitive Solar Power Towers) takes place. As part of the project IKTS researcher Dr. Alexander Füssel develops ceramic components for solar tower power plants. In an interview, he explains how, with which materials and which advantages result from this.

Europe's energy supply is undergoing a fundamental transformation: away from nuclear and fossil fuels and towards renewable energy sources. Especially in the field of energy efficiency, thermoelectrics can offer easily implementable and customizable solutions. Will thermoelectrics prevail as a future technology and find a broader application in industry? We asked our expert in thermoelectrics Dr. Hans-Peter Martin about this.

Our modern networked world is unimaginable without the support of satellites from space. Navigation, broadcasting or mobile communication are just a few examples. Space stations, such as the ISS, are used for research purposes. Many smaller satellites provide data on changes in climate and vegetation. But what happens to all these artificial satellites when they are no longer needed? How can we get them back?

With 14 partners from eight countries, ASTRABAT, a major European project for the production of novel battery cells, was launched in January. Europe aims to set new standards by 2023 – from the processing of raw materials to cell production and recycling. Fraunhofer IKTS is involved in the project under the leadership of Dr. Kristian Nikolowski. We met him for some insights.

With our programs for young researchers, children can experience from an early age what MINT means for applied research. We make it tangible and visible where solutions to everyday problems can be found with the help of mathematics, information technology, science and technology.

(Almost) everyone eats and loves them. It is often described as a small sin for in-between times and yet it is eaten at any time of day. The talk is of course of chocolate. But did you know that until the 19th century people bought chocolate in pharmacies because it was considered a tonic? And what's more, would you have thought that the Fraunhofer IKTS developed a chocolate-coated sensor system in the form of a chocolate bar?

Functional inks and pastes are a key element for printed electronics. In the future, they will be found in wearables - in clothing or directly on the skin - and will measure the blood sugar level of diabetics, for example. For printed electronics, we select the basic materials including the appropriate organic materials, adjust the properties required for the application, adapt the inks and pastes for the printing process such as inkjet and aerosol printing and manufacture the prototypes. In this way, the most diverse electronic components, assemblies and applications in terms of shape and flexibility can be produced.

The smell is reminiscent of vacation, but everybody knows what is produced in the large ponds in Wermsdorf. Fishes are cultivated in aquaculture, mainly carps but also sturgeons, pikes and pikeperches. The fishes are kept appropriate to the species – and this since 1502 when the ponds have been first mentioned in a document. The aquafarming system is not the first of its kind. Already in the 11th century European monks have been cultivating carps which is similar to aquafarming today. Why?...

As research and technology service provider the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS develops solutions for highly stressed components in mechanical and plant engineering as well as medical, energy and environmental technology. Particular challenge is to reliably apply ceramic materials on other material systems. This long-year know-how is used in various fields of surface finishing and functionalization. Some selected examples are summarized below.

Foundry industry has a key role as supplier especially for companies in automotive and plant engineering, aviation industry, shipbuilding or energy technology. The requirements for the production of castings with regard to quality, price structure, reliability and shape variety increase continuously. Fraunhofer IKTS develops advanced ceramic materials which may significantly contribute to satisfy these demands.