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BYLINE: Anna Ettlin Newswise — No new cars with combustion engines are to be sold in Europe after 2035. To achieve this ambitious goal, one thing is needed above all: better batteries so that electric cars can charge faster, travel longer distances and have a smaller ecological footprint. A large number of major research projects…
BYLINE: Dr. Andrea Six Asthma, hay fever or chronic skin conditions: The occurrence of allergic reactions is diverse and on the rise. Among other things, environmental factors during the child’s early development in the womb are suspected, which lay the foundation for later illnesses. A team of researchers from Empa, ETH Zurich, EPFL, the University…
Data centers consume vast amounts of energy – around 40 percent of it for cooling microprocessors alone. Novel cooling methods using ionic wind could drastically curb energy consumption. These are based on electrostatic fields to convert electrical current directly and energy-efficiently into an airflow. The low speeds of the generated airflow have so far prevented…
In order to reduce the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere to the target level of 1988 – i.e. to 350 ppm (parts per million) – an estimated 400 billion tons of carbon must be removed from the atmosphere. This is a huge amount, equivalent to around 1,500 billion tons of CO₂. Empa researchers have now…
Fungi are a source of fascination. This kingdom of life – more closely related to animals than to plants – encompasses an enormous variety. Everything can be found here: from edible mushrooms to molds, from single-celled life to the largest organism on Earth, from disease-causing pathogens to superheroes that produce medicines. Now, Empa researchers have…
BYLINE: Anna Ettlin Switzerland has set itself a goal that is as ambitious as it is necessary: net zero by 2050. One of the most important raw materials on the road to a climate-neutral future is wood. This renewable natural resource binds CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows. Both as a material and as…
What do motion detectors, self-driving cars, chemical analyzers and satellites have in common? They all contain detectors for infrared (IR) light. At their core and besides readout electronics, such detectors usually consist of a crystalline semiconductor material. Such materials are challenging to manufacture: They often require extreme conditions, such as a very high temperature, and…
BYLINE: Dr. Andrea Six In order to defy climate change and the bark beetle, more deciduous trees are being planted in Swiss forests. If possible, their wood should be used several times before it ends up as firewood, thus releasing the previously bound CO₂ back into the atmosphere. At present, however, hardwood is still too…
