Archive

An international photovoltaics working group has developed a new transparent material to serve as a top layer for solar cells, based on nanocrystals. According to simulations performed by the participating TU Delft researchers, this layer can increase the efficiency of mass-produced solar cells to within a percent of their practical limit.

How does someone fall down after a push or jump? How to do good research at a crime scene? Can a computer model determine the time of death? And how do you get all traces out of a phone in a good way? These are just a few examples of studies that TU Delft and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) are conducting together. Today, the collaboration has been strengthened by signing a joint "Memorandum of Understanding".

We’re all familiar with the step tracker these days. Now there’s something new: the stumble tracker. This invention by TU Delft is helping a trauma surgeon at Erasmus MC to measure whether people using a new kind of prosthetic leg stumble less frequently. ‘This partnership has a bright future.’

A team of researchers from QuTech in the Netherlands reports realization of the first multi-node quantum network, connecting three quantum processors. In addition, they achieved a proof-of-principle demonstration of key quantum network protocols. Their findings mark an important milestone towards the future quantum internet and have now been published in Science.

A parking lot with solar panels where renewable energy generation, electric charging and energy storage are cleverly integrated. In the Municipality of Dronten, the official opening of a parking lot with 1,100 solar panels is taking place today, which, in combination with a large battery, will make the town hall energy-neutral.

Researcher Chirlmin Joo of TU Delft will receive a VICI grant for developing a method to sequence proteins one at a time. He will receive 1.5 million euros from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

For the next ten years TU Delft will allocate 22 million euro to set up and shape an extensive Climate Action Programme, focusing not only on additional investments in research and education but also on improving the sustainability of TU Delft campus.

Zuid-Holland's economy and knowledge and innovation infrastructure will be strengthened thanks to investments from the National Growth Fund announced today by the demissionary government. The money will go towards improving accessibility, Health, Quantum, Green Power and Artificial Intelligence.

On September 1, 2020, part of the quay of the Grimburgwal in Amsterdam collapsed. The primary causes appear to be the different construction of the narrow quay, the locally deeper canal bed, and the weakening of masonry due to collisions. This is the result of the research conducted by a research team composed of experts from TU Delft, Deltares, AMS Institute, and SkyGEO, led by Mandy Korff (TU Delft/Deltares), on behalf of the City of Amsterdam. The full report with conclusions and recommendations for other quay walls in the city was published by the City of Amsterdam on April 8, 2021.

This week the Dutch project ABOARD (A personalized medicine approach for Alzheimer’s disease), a collaboration of more than thirty partners, has been launched. ABOARD aims to prepare for a future in which Alzheimer’s disease is stopped before dementia has started. ABOARD achieves this by improving diagnostic markers, developing personalized risk scores and by focusing on prevention through increased awareness of dementia and brain health.

Researcher Deborah Gernat has created a new method to further develop the taste of non-alcoholic beer, in collaboration with Heineken. The technique, which is based on molecular sieves, gives brewers a new tool to bring the taste of non-alcoholic beer closer to that of regular beer. The first tests showed that the sweet 'wort taste' that often characterizes alcohol-free beer can be reduced using this method. On April 9th, Deborah Gernat will receive her doctorate on this subject at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).

Marien van der Meer will become Vice President Operations (VPO) in the Executive Board of TU Delft. The Supervisory Board has appointed Van der Meer as of 1 August 2021. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors/CFOO of the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Netherlands Cancer Institute.

Een bijna lege telefoon kan bij rampen het verschil betekenen tussen leven en dood. TU Delft onderzoeker Indushree Banerjee heeft daarom een nieuw energie-efficiënt en betrouwbaar noodcommunicatiesysteem ontworpen voor smartphones. Het systeem maximaliseert het aantal mensen dat gedurende een langere periode kan communiceren en kan daarmee levens redden in getroffen gebieden.

Researchers at TU Delft have expanded upon a clever trick that increases the speed of electron microscope imaging by a factor of twenty. A simple adjustment is all that is needed: applying a voltage to the specimen holder. Through this simple intervention, a specimen that the electron microscope would normally take a week to image can now be inspected in a single night or one working day.

TU Delft is building the Delft High-Performance Computing Centre (DHPC). This supercomputer complements existing national and cloud-based facilities, and offers academics and students greater flexibility when conducting their research. The arrival of the supercomputer is accompanied by a comprehensive training programme addressing the effective use of computing facilities.

The ventilation system in the Thialf ice stadium creates an airflow that affects the skaters. This is the conclusion of TU Delft aerodynamics researcher Alexander Spoelstra. He was commissioned by Thialf to closely map out the airflow, after skaters asked questions about the stadium's ventilation system. Spoelstra used a research set-up made up of lasers, helium bubbles and high-speed cameras. The technical report of the investigation was published online on 26 March.

In preparation for cell division, cells need to copy (‘replicate’) the DNA that they contain. A team of researchers from TU Delft, collaborating with investigators from the Francis Crick Institute in London, has now shown that the protein building blocks involved in the initial steps of DNA replication are mobile but reduce their speed at specific DNA sequences on the genome. Their findings, which will be published on 26 March in the open-access journal Nature Communications, were facilitated using an integrated approach involving biophysics and biochemistry that will propel new discoveries in the field.

The heart of any computer, its central processing unit, is built using semiconductor technology, which is capable of putting billions of transistors onto a single chip. Now, researchers from the group of Menno Veldhorst at QuTech, a collaboration between TU Delft and TNO, have shown that this technology can be used to build a two-dimensional array of qubits to function as a quantum processor. Their work, a crucial milestone for scalable quantum technology, was published today in Nature.

TU Delft researchers and 20 partners will develop reliable and safe wireless broadband connections using light instead of radio waves. They anticipate that this technology will allow us to securely send and process digital data at high speeds, with low latency. For this research project, the team has been awarded €4.1 million from the Dutch Research Council’s (NWO) Perspectief programme. TU Delft is also participating in the other five consortia that received Perspectief funding.

The authors of the 2018 article Quantized Majorana conductance have retracted this article. The authors were alerted to problems by two scientists in the same research area and then went on to re-examine their earlier measurements. In doing so, they found that the main conclusion had not been adequately substantiated.

Onderzoekers van de TU Delft hebben een test ontwikkeld waarmee ze specifieke stukjes genetisch materiaal kunnen opsporen, waarna de uitslag met het blote oog af te lezen is. Met de test kunnen onder meer virussen, zoals het coronavirus, en antibioticaresistente bacteriën snel en goedkoop worden gedetecteerd. De resultaten zijn gepubliceerd in Biophysical Journal.

Scientists of Wageningen University & Research, TU Delft and Erasmus MC have developed an online tool that helps determine how indoor spaces can be designed and used corona proof. With the OpenSmartTogether tool, restaurant owners can limit the risks of the spreading of the coronavirus in their restaurant. The researchers are inviting restaurant owners to participate in an online pilot.

Today, TU Delft launches Tech for Health | Better healthcare thanks to Delft technology. The university is shining a spotlight on its research innovations that contribute to the improvement of healthcare, especially in countries like The Netherlands.

Just like last year, the World University Rankings by Subjects 2021, published on 3 March, places TU Delft in a respectable 15th position in the broad category Engineering & Technology. Ten disciplines, including Architecture, Civil & Structural Engineering, Mechanical, Aeronautical & Manufacturing Engineering and Environmental Sciences, are ranked in the global top 20.

What does the Dutch population think about Dutch climate policy? Researchers from TU Delft and Utrecht University invite thousands of Dutch people to contribute their ideas.

As a ‘climate university’, TU Delft aims to be carbon neutral and circular by 2030. Information regarding CO2 emissions on campus is essential to realising this ambition. The CO2 performance ladder methodology has now been used to map emissions in 2019.

TU Delft, NOC*NSF, KNSB and Innovation Lab Thialf have been using the Ring of Fire measuring system to analyse top Dutch speed skaters. The measuring system was used last week in Heerenveen to measure and visualise the air resistance around a moving skater.

Studying online places a heavy burden on students. Therefore, TU Delft is looking at various possibilities to enable more physical education and study places on campus. “We realise that for some students it is very difficult to study at home. That is why we are looking at increasing the number of study places on campus” says Rob Mudde, Vice President of Education TU Delft.

On 4 March, Studium Generale, in collaboration with GreenTU and the Student Council, is organising the Climate Action Election Debate 2021, with representatives of the political youth parties. During this evening we give the generation that will shape the near future a platform to debate their solution for the climate problem. https://sg.tudelft.nl/event/climate-action-verkiezingsdebat-2021/

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy has allocated 5.7 million euro to FLEXINet. In the upcoming years, the FLEXINet consortium will develop hybrid energy storage systems – capable of storing both heat and electricity. Pavol Bauer, professor at TU Delft and project leader and coordinator: ‘The aim of FLEXINet is a system that accelerates the energy transition. We hope to make a substantial contribution to reaching climate targets by cleverly combining various techniques – think of blending recycled batteries with flexible heat pumps and the charging of electric cars.’

The increasing miniaturisation of electrical components in industry requires a new imaging technique at the nanometre scale. Delft researcher Gerard Verbiest and ASML have developed a first proof-of-concept method that they now plan to further develop.

De invloed van aerosolen in de atmosfeer op wolken en het klimaat is mogelijk anders dan eerder werd gedacht, concludeert wolkenonderzoeker Franziska Glassmeier.

A large consortium led by TU Delft is going to provide ‘brains’ to buildings. The Dutch Minis-try of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy has allocated 6.9 million euro to the Brains 4 Build-ings project. The objective of the project is to contribute to the development of smart meth-ods and algorithms that add operational intelligence to buildings, in order to make them as energy efficient and comfortable as possible. Professor and scientific coordinator Laure Itard: “Buildings’ energy systems have become so complex that their real time control cannot be achieved by traditional methods. We need much clever approaches using the potential of machine learning and artificial intelligence.”

In today’s edition of the TV show Jinek, Ernst Kuijpers, Marion Koopmans and Ahmed Aboutaleb presented plans for the Pandemic & Disaster Preparedness Center (PDPC) developed by the convergence collaboration between TU Delft, Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC) and Erasmus University Rotterdam. In this centre, Rotterdam and Delft bring together top scientists in the fields of medicine, engineering (including AI), logistics and sociology. Their ambitious research agenda addresses the extent and the interrelated aspects of future pandemics and disasters. In the Netherlands and around the world, there is an urgent need to better prepare for pandemics and disasters such as the current coronavirus crisis. The knowledge that has been acquired in the Rotterdam area can be applied broadly, which means that the Pandemic & Disaster Preparedness Center will be able to play an important role worldwide in preparing for future disasters and pandemics.

TU Delft is launching a new series of eight TU Delft AI Labs today. In these labs, scientists are using artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific progress and help solve societal issues. Another eight labs will be launched later in 2021, bringing the total to 24. In the past year, almost all sixteen of the new Assistant Professor posts opened as part of this programme thus far have been filled. The recruitment of 32 PhD students for the new TU Delft AI Labs will start end of February. In addition, TU Delft will present the labs at the MIT European career fair on 25 February.

You may have wondered how a honeybee has such perfect navigation skills.

Biotechnologists at Delft University of Technology have built an artificial chromosome in yeast. The chromosome can exist alongside the natural yeast chromosomes, and serves as a platform to safely and easily add new functions to the micro-organism. Researchers can use the artificial chromosome to convert yeast cells into living factories capable of producing useful chemicals and even medicines.

What is the future of the market for natural gas, hydrogen and electricity? A large consortium is working on an adaptive simulation model of the energy system of the port of Rotterdam.

The Executive Board has appointed Professor Andy van den Dobbelsteen as TU Delft Sustainability Coordinator with effect from 1 January 2021.