Research News

Op dinsdag 22 mei stond het Process & Energy lab bol van e-Refinery: hèt gloednieuwe consortium dat met een unieke integrale aanpak, van materiaal tot en met processen en opschaling, de chemische –en energie-industrie helpt te elektrificeren en decarboniseren.

Technology such as MRI helps us to understand the processes that take place in biomass when we purify waste water with micro-organisms. We can use this knowledge to extract more energy and resources (and new pollution) from our own waste water. But we also need new knowledge to tackle problems in the rapidly expanding world cities, where waste water purification is often a relatively new concept. We can and must get much more out of our waste water. This is argued by Professor Merle de Kreuk, who will give her inaugural address at TU Delft on Wednesday, 23 May.

Rienk van der Slikke has developed a technique to monitor individual wheelchair mobility performance using small sensors. On Friday 25 May, he will be awarded his PhD at TU Delft for his work on the subject.

On Tuesday 15 May, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender paid a visit to TU Delft and Yes!Delft.

We are Energy for Refugees (EFR), consisting of seven international TU Delft students, doing our masters in Construction, Civil Engineering and Sustainable Energy Systems. The situation in the refugee camps urges us to stand up and use our capabilities and knowledge to provide sustainable solutions. We need you for the execution: help us save camp PIKPA by donating!

Philips has acquired NightBalance, the Delft University of Technology spin-off company that has developed a ‘Sleep Position Trainer’, to treat positional obstructive sleep apnea and positional snoring. Founder and CEO Eline Vrijland-Van Beest is thrilled that her company will be joining Philips. “Together, we will develop innovative solutions that help people around the world sleep better at night.”

On Saturday 26 May, TU Delft will be organising the last Open Day of this academic year. Secondary school students and their parents will be given information about programmes in two-hour rounds. The information sessions for Marine Technology and Clinical Technology will take place in our building; Mechanical Engineering will be in the Aula (Auditorium and Senate Room) as a result of the amount of visitors.

The Netherlands needs to opt for a coastal system that is as adaptive as possible, taking maximum advantage of the coast’s natural resilience and its ability to organise itself. This is according to ecologist, Prof. Peter Herman, who will give his inaugural address at TU Delft on Wednesday, 9 May.

Titanium white is a pigment used in the 20th century by painters like Picasso and Mondriaan. The ‘bad’ version of this pigment can lead to early aging of paintings when expowed to UV light. TU Delft researcher Birgit van Driel has - in close cooperation with AkzoNobel, the Rijksmuseum and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, and within the context of the Netherlands Institute for Conservation+Art+Science+ (NICAS) - developed a straightforward method to estimate the potential risk to painting. This will enable museums to take timely action to prevent damage to paintings. On Wednesday 9 May, Birgit will be defending her PhD at TU Delft.

The 4TU.Federation has awarded a total of 22 million euros to five proposals within the framework of the call ‘High Tech for a Sustainable Future’, thus giving a strong impetus to research into sustainable technology.

Remco Hartkamp, tenure-track lecturer of computational chemical physics at the Department of Process & Energy, developed a new method, together with researchers from the CNRS in France and the NTT Basic Research Laboratories in Japan, that will make it easier to measure the concentration of different electrolytes in the body using a nanotransistor.

In the same week as the worldwide release of Avengers: Infinity War, the latest Hollywood superhero film, the first papers and editorial have been published in the new superhero-themed online journal. The papers in Superhero Science and Technology focus on two members of the Avengers - the Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) and Iron Man (Tony Stark).

Prof. Nick van de Giesen received an IBM Technology & Data grant in the form of free super computing power and weather data. The project of Prof. Van de Giesen and Camille le Coz (both from the Water Management department) focusses on the simulation of rainfall and weather data in Africa to increase farmer resilience.