News 2021

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Dec 20, 2021 | Environmentally friendly electronics
Intelligent packaging with sensors that monitor goods, such as vegetables, on long transport routes is a trend for the future. Yet printed and disposable electronics also cause problems: Metals in printing inks are...
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Dec 16, 2021 | Switzerland's built infrastructure under pressure
Buildings, roads, railways, supply and disposal networks and much more: The entire Swiss built environment is as complex as its challenges for the future – due to climate change, natural hazards, population growth and...
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Dec 14, 2021 | The Empa Research Award 2021 goes to …
Operations on the digestive tract involve particularly high risks. To enable wounds on the intestinal wall to be sealed tightly in the future, Empa researcher Alexandre Anthis has developed a patch that prevents...
Rolf Erni Professur
Dec 10, 2021 | Professorship at ETH Zurich
The head of Empa's Electron Microscopy Center is thus honored for his many years of successful teaching at ETH Zurich. His research at Empa in the field of transmission electron microscopy is internationally recognized.
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Dec 9, 2021 | Corona infections and air quality
Indoor air quality has an influence on how many corona virus infections occur there. This has now been shown for the first time in a pilot project involving Empa researchers in 150 primary school classrooms in...
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Dec 8, 2021 | Empa Zukunftsfonds
Scientists are visionaries. Sometimes their ideas go much further than an industrial partner is willing to go. The Empa Zukunftsfonds aims at supporting such visionary projects, where, despite high risks – or precisely...
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Dec 1, 2021 | Building smarter
In Dübendorf, Empa is currently building a new, future-oriented research campus, co-operate, where groundbreaking research is conducted – and which is itself an object of research.
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Nov 24, 2021 | Better understanding the global carbon cycle
An article in the scientific journal "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society" describes for the first time how the European ICOS network ("Integrated Carbon Observation System") helps to better understand the...
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Nov 23, 2021 | Empa joins ANAXAM network
Together with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), X-ray specialists from Empa are now providing their industrial partners with access to state-of-the-art material analysis of 3D-printed work pieces and...
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Nov 18, 2021 | How can we best achieve the energy transition?
The World Climate Conference in Glasgow has just ended, and the question is whether the goal of maximum global heating of 1.5°C can still be achieved. In a model calculation, Empa researchers show how the energy...
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Nov 16, 2021 | Ranking of the Most Cited Researchers in 2021
Every year, the most cited scientists are selected. They are each considered to be particularly influential in their field. This year, Empa has three of these exceptional researchers – two old acquaintances and one...
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Nov 11, 2021 | Spalted wood
Spalted wood is a highly sought-after material in the high-end furniture industry. In a newly developed process, Empa scientists have succeeded at controlling the spread of fungi in native wood types to create elaborate...
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Nov 9, 2021 | Toward a sustainable energy system
Swiss electricity generation has a very low carbon footprint. However, this is often not the case for imports. Researchers from the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Automation, led by Empa researcher...
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Nov 8, 2021 | YouTube livestream
2.8 million tons of food are disposed of each year before they land on Swiss plates - and that shouldn't be the case. In terms of a single person, we throw considerable amounts of food directly into the trash at home: 20...
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Nov 4, 2021 | 3D Printing Photo Report
Additive Manufacturing, AM in brief, is fascinating: As if by magic, complex workpieces grow in 3D printers: layer by layer by layer ... – without human intervention, as it may seem at first glance. But the technology is...
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Nov 1, 2021 | YouTube livestream
Cars that autonomously and safely navigate from A to B are expected to be a common sight in just a few years from now. But road approval is still a long way off. One crucial aspect: How can we tell if a self-driving car...
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Oct 28, 2021 | Clothes recycling
Switzerland and the EU are pushing the reuse of raw materials. But despite the best efforts, the circular economy in the textile industry sometimes produces abstruse blossoms. After all, recycling can also harm the...
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Oct 26, 2021 | Infrared technology
Short-wave infrared light (SWIR) is useful for many things: It helps sort out damaged fruit and inspecting silicon chips, and it enables night vision devices with sharp images. But SWIR cameras have so far been based on...
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Oct 19, 2021 | Environmental pollution
Sediments in the Spöl, a small river in the very south of the canton Graubünden, are contaminated with PCBs. The chemicals originate from a 50-year-old anti-corrosion coating of a hydroelectric power plant in an upstream...
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Oct 14, 2021 | Quantum Magnetism
Led by scientists at Empa and the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, an international team of researchers from Switzerland, Portugal, Germany, and Spain have succeeded in building carbon-based quantum spin...