Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a film that not only protects wounds similar to the way a bandage does, but also helps wounds to heal faster, repels bacteria, dampens inflammation, releases active pharmaceutical ingredients in a targeted manner and ultimately dissolves by itself. This is all made possible by its dedicated design and the use of mucins, molecules which occur naturally in mucous membranes.
Reducing energy consumption caused by cooling systems and reducing plastic waste in the environment are key requirements for a sustainable economy. In a research project on novel functional films, Bayreuth-based physical chemist Prof. Dr. Markus Retsch aims to tackle both problems simultaneously: In the future, plastic waste is to be processed into large-area films that can cool without the need to supply energy from outside. The project is funded by the Proof of Concept Grants programme of the European Research Council (ERC) with around 150,000 euros.
Prof. Dr. Anna Köhler, Chair of Soft Matter Optoelectronics at the University of Bayreuth, has been elected as a new full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW). She was recently officially welcomed in Munich as a new member of Section III "Natural Sciences, Mathematics, Engineering". The Bayreuth experimental physicist is only the fourth researcher to be admitted to this 58-member BAdW section.
Worldwide, almost all technology-intensive industries depend on readily available metallic raw materials. Consequently, precise and reliable information is needed on how long these raw materials remain in the economic cycle. To obtain the necessary data, a research team from the universities of Bayreuth, Augsburg and Bordeaux has now developed a new modelling method and applied it to 61 metals. The study published in Nature Sustainability shows that the metals needed for specific high-tech applications, which in many cases are scarce around the world, are in use for only a decade on average.
A team of researchers from Bordeaux, Augsburg and Bayreuth has studied 61 different metals over the course of multiple years. The results have been published in the prestigious journal "Nature Sustainability“ - The most significant finding was that the raw materials critical to modern technology, in particular, have a relatively short usage period.
Jules Verne could not even dream of this: A research team from the University of Bayreuth, together with international partners, has pushed the boundaries of high-pressure and high-temperature research into cosmic dimensions. For the first time, they have succeeded in generating and simultaneously analyzing materials under compression pressures of more than one terapascal (1,000 gigapascals). Such extremely high pressures prevail, for example, at the center of the planet Uranus; they are more than three times higher than the pressure at the center of the Earth. In Nature, the researchers present the method they have developed for the synthesis and structural analysis of novel materials.
A low-cost and easy-to-manufacture lighting technology can be made with light-emitting electrochemical cells. Such cells are thin-film electronic and ionic devices that generate light after a low voltage is applied. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Turin have now used extensive data analysis to create first-class electrochemical cells from copper complexes that emit blue and white light.
Engineering students at the University of Bayreuth benefit from a broadly-based research environment with excellent links to industry and small and medium-sized enterprises. They have access to current research projects of great economic-technological relevance at an early stage. At the beginning of their studies, they receive intensive support from researchers and lecturers. For this reason, the University of Bayreuth ranks among the top universities in Germany in the CHE University Ranking 2022 in the field of engineering subjects in the categories "support at the beginning of studies" and "third-party funding per scientist".
Polyethylene, a plastic that is both cheap and easy to process, accounts for nearly one-third of the world’s plastic waste. An interdisciplinary team from the University of Bayreuth has investigated the progressive degradation of polyethylene in the environment for the first time. Although the degradation process leads to fragmentation into ever smaller particles, isolated nanoplastic particles are rarely found in the environment. The reason is that such decay products do not like to remain on their own, but rather attach rapidly to larger colloidal systems that occur naturally in the environment. The researchers have now presented their findings in "Science of the Total Environment".
The Faculty of Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has once again been recognized for outstanding achievements: Prof. Dr. Paul Steinmann, Chair of Applied Mechanics, has been awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Professor Steinmann intends to use the funding worth 2.5 million euros to investigate the fracture mechanics of soft materials such as rubber or tissue more intensively during the next five years. Steinmann received his first ERC Advanced Grant for research into magnetic elastomers in 2011.
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