Jul 20, 2021 | Passenger cars
Up to now passenger cars are classified by experts in each country into categories such as micro, small, middle, upper middle, large and luxury class. But this old fashioned method has limitations in terms of...
Jul 15, 2021 | Climate friendly building
Insulation webs are essential in aluminum window profiles and facades for good thermal insulation. Empa researchers and their partners have been working for some time on a novel "sandwich" product with an environmentally...
Jul 13, 2021 | Optics
When fluorescent dye molecules nestle perfectly together, something completely new is created: an excited state distributed over many molecules. Such collective excitations can be used in a variety of ways – for organic...
Jul 7, 2021 | The new Swissloop pod
Two years after Elon Musk's last Hyperloop Pod Competition in California, Swissloop, a team of students from ETH Zurich, has joined forces with three other teams to launch the European Hyperloop Week. In mid-July, the...
Jul 6, 2021 | Solar technology from Synhelion to receive Innosuisse funding
Synhelion and Empa are conducting a joint research project, co-funded by the Swiss Innovation Agency Innosuisse, to further develop a high-temperature energy storage solution that is a key component in the production of...
Jul 1, 2021 | Simulation
Modern, decentralized energy systems are a highly complex matter. Planning them in an optimal and cost-efficient way is a major challenge for energy planners. Sympheny, an Empa spin-off, offers a software that helps...
Jun 22, 2021 | Energy storage
During the winter months, renewable energy is in short supply throughout Europe. An international project is now considering an unconventional solution: Renewable hydrogen and carbon dioxide are pumped into the ground...
Jun 17, 2021 | Chemical Contamination
Bacteria from an Indian landfill could help eliminate contaminated chemicals. The focus is on pesticides such as lindane or brominated flame retardants, which accumulate in nature and in food chains. Researchers at Empa...
Jun 14, 2021 | Empa/ETH Zurich researcher honored
For his pioneering work on the surface chemistry of nanocrystals and their use for electronic and optoelectronic devices, including batteries, photodetectors, thermoelectrics, solar cells and light sources, Empa/ETH...
Jun 10, 2021 | Now also a virtual experience
The research and innovation building NEST of Empa and Eawag can now be visited virtually at any time and from anywhere in the world. The launch of the virtual NEST tour is a further step towards closing the gap between...
Jun 8, 2021 | Synthetic fuels
Produced in a sustainable way, synthetic fuels contribute to switching mobility to renewable energy and to achieving the climate goals in road traffic. In Empa's mobility demonstrator, move, researchers are investigating...
Jun 3, 2021 | Internet of Things
The number of data-transmitting microdevices, for instance in packaging and transport logistics, will increase sharply in the coming years. All these devices need energy, but the amount of batteries would have a major...
Jun 1, 2021 | Personalized medicine
Digital twins enable customized medical therapies. Empa researchers have now modeled several hundred such avatars based on real people and treated them experimentally. For the first time, the digital twins received...
May 27, 2021 | The other side of entropy
An international team led by Empa and ETH Zurich researchers is playing with shape-engineered nanoscale building blocks that are up to 100-times larger than atoms and ions. And although these nano "Lego bricks" interact...
May 25, 2021 | Quantum electronics
Scientists at Empa and EPFL have identified a new type of defect as the most common source of disorder in on-surface synthesized graphene nanoribbons, a novel class of carbon-based materials that may prove extremely...
May 20, 2021 | Recycling
Swiss drivers wear out countless tires. Instead of incinerating them, they could be reused locally: The asphalt of various countries has long contained rubber from used tires. Empa and its partners from industry are...
May 18, 2021 | Keeping it cool despite climate change
Climate-related temperature rises will further increase the cooling demand of buildings. A projection by Empa researchers based on data from the NEST building and future climate scenarios for Switzerland shows that this...
May 12, 2021 | Empa CEO re-elected
The Federal Council confirmed Empa CEO Gian-Luca Bona in office. Bona has been re-elected for a fourth term from 1 September 2021 to 31 May 2022.
May 12, 2021 | Empa’s Annual Report 2020 now online
Empa’s Annual Report 2020 leads you on a gripping journey through the world of research and innovation; you may be surprised at how broad the term "applied research" is defined at Empa.
May 11, 2021 | Sustainability
Even a sustainable circular economy doesn't run without energy. Solar panels and wind farms, tidal and geothermal power plants: They all divert energy from energy fluxes that had remained untapped since time immemorial....