Archive

The Young Academy is welcoming ten new members. They are researchers who work in a variety of disciplines, have been selected for their scientific achievements, and received their doctorates less than ten years ago. One of them is Dr. Irene Dedoussi, Associate Professor in the field of climate impact of aviation.

“Partnering with China has pros and cons – it is not a black and white situation”, said Tim van der Hagen, President of the Executive Board of TU Delft at the recently held symposium on 9 November. “There are risks, and people worry about knowledge protection, about dual use. It is important that together and in dialogue with external parties and experts, we help our researchers find the right balance for their specific joint project. A symposium like this one and the China Tools living document our university developed earlier this year are a real, concrete help in navigating the waters of academic collaboration with China”.

The climate is changing, not only in the Netherlands, but far beyond as well. The UN climate conference in Glasgow in 2021 had a clear message: climate adaptation is required of everyone; from governments to individuals around the world. Researchers from Delft University of Technology and Twente University investigated the drivers of what motivates or hinders people in different cultures in climate adaptation. The results were published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.

Researchers from TU Delft developed a method to watch the formation of kidney stones on a microscale, in a so called microfluidic platform. By slightly adjusting the pH and the concentration of specific minerals, the formation could be slowed down or inhibited completely. The research is now published in Biomicrofluidics.

A team of researchers from TU Delft managed to design one of the world’s most precise microchip sensors; the device can function at room temperature – a ‘holy grail’ for quantum technologies and sensing.

On 23 November, a new national course catalogue for lifelong learning www.universitairdoorleren.nl was launched. This joint project of all VSNU (Association of Universities) member institutions is led by Delft University of Technology and the Open University, and aims to provide a comprehensive overview of all post-graduate education on offer in the Netherlands for adults and professionals wishing to continue their education.

Starting today, everyone can freely access Quantum Network Explorer (QNE) to experiment with quantum networks. QNE is developed by QuTech—a collaboration between Delft University of Technology and TNO—and specifically aimed at researchers, students, software developers and future users of quantum network applications.

CO2 can be electrochemically converted into valuable chemicals and fuels. Both capturing and converting CO2 do, however, require a lot of energy. An optimal combination of both processes can save a lot of energy and reduce the loss of materials. The TU Delft research group of David Vermaas recently published a paper in Nature Catalyses, summarising the various ideas on how to achieve this.

Said Hamdioui's 'computation-in-memory' is the Best Tech Idea of 2021 according to the jury of KIJK magazine. The jury praised Said's computer architecture for making numerous new innovations possible: "the Internet of Things requires large amounts of computers that all must be very energy-efficient. Memristors can be the basis for this and that makes this idea, however young, very important."

With his Plastic Scanner, Jerry de Vos has designed a handheld device that can tell you quickly what kind of plastic something is made of. Knowing this is crucial for better reuse and recycling of the growing worldwide plastic waste.

Today, at the online TU Delft Best Graduate Award Ceremony 2021, eight recently graduated engineers presented their research and results of their excellent master thesis. Zhuo-ming Shia, graduate of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment received the prestigious title TU Delft Best Graduate 2021.

TU Delft researchers Andrei Anisimov, Roger Groves and Nan Tao used their special research equipment in the Rijksmuseum last week, to make the invisible structure of The Night Watch visible.

Using nanopore DNA sequencing technology, researchers from TU Delft and the University of Illinois have managed to scan a single protein: by slowly moving a linearized protein through a tiny nanopore, one amino acid at the time, the researchers were able to read off electric currents that relate to the information content of the protein. The researchers published their proof-of-concept in Science today. The new single-molecule peptide reader marks a breakthrough in protein identification, and opens the way towards single-molecule protein sequencing and cataloguing the proteins inside a single cell.

Researchers from QuTech created a time crystal, a novel exotic quantum phase of matter, using a quantum computer based on diamond. Together with a simultaneous experiment by Google, the results shed new light on the physics of out-of-equilibrium quantum systems. The team reports their findings today in Science. 

An imposing, compelling and urgent social problem, that is what Master student Sarah Hanus wanted for her final project. She found it high up in the Austrian Alps where climate change is altering river runoff patterns. Using a model she developed herself, Hanus is able to come up with long-term projections of what these patterns will look like in future. Her work earned her the title of Best Graduate of the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Sciences.

TU Delft takes 50th position on the 2021 Times Higher Education World Reputation Ranking published today. As far as European universities are concerned, TU Delft has ended in 13th position, and within the Netherlands TU Delft is number one.

From 28 October to 5 November, it is National Climate Week with the slogan 'everyone does something'. TU Delft, as a climate university, is fully participating, because attention to the climate is more urgent than ever.

An international consortium, led by Delft University of Technology and the University of North Carolina, has for the first time succeeded in probing the molecular origins of recombination in RNA viruses. Hiccups during the copying process of viruses cause recombination to take place: the exchange of segments of viral RNA.

How do you install a wind turbine far out at sea when high waves and strong winds make its installation virtually impossible? With this question in mind, a team of researchers from TU Delft, in collaboration with Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) and DOT B.V., boarded the world's largest crane vessel this week: Heerema's Sleipnir. As part of a major pioneering project, the FOX project, they are exploring floating wind turbine installation.

ProRail, TU Delft and Deltares will conduct an investigation over the next five years into the behaviour of trains travelling along our railway embankments. On 4 October 2021, they signed the RESET research programme agreement for this purpose. This research will focus on the consequences of increased and heavier rail traffic along with climate change on our railway embankments and how we can anticipate them. As there is little fundamental systematic knowledge in this field in Europe, this pioneering research may also assist other countries facing similar problems.

Delft PhD student Daan Sutmuller has developed a new, effective method in collaboration with the police that supports homicide investigation teams in collecting and prioritising interesting persons in the investigation more quickly. The promising method should make the investigation work more manageable and ensure that more homicide cases are solved. Sutmuller obtains his doctorate this Thursday with his dissertation 'Murder investigation in the digital age'.

In order to ensure that the electricity grid is prepared for the future, TU Delft, the Dutch government and partners including grid operator TenneT have joined forces to build a brand-new laboratory: the Electrical Sustainable Power Lab, otherwise known as the ESP Lab. The laboratory – described as a ‘veritable temple of sustainability’ – will be officially opened on the afternoon of Friday, 1 October 2021.

Robotic body-weight support (BWS) devices can play a key role in helping people with neurological disorders to improve their walking. The team that developed the advanced body-weight support device RYSEN in 2018 has since gained more fundamental insight in BWS but also concludes that improvement in this field is necessary.

Last year, computer engineers from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and Northwestern University introduced the world’s first battery-free Game Boy, which harvests both solar energy and the user’s kinetic energy from button mashing to power an unlimited lifetime of game play. The same team now introduces a new platform that enables makers, hobbyists and novice programmers to build their own battery-free electronic devices that run with intermittent, harvested energy.

Making a significant contribution to creating opportunities for a CO2-free energy system, this is what 150 representatives from the business community, knowledge institutions and government are working on within the Dutch AI Coalition. The Energy and Sustainability working group collaborated on the position paper 'AI as an accelerator of the energy transition', which sets out the opportunities for a CO2-free energy system. Researchers from TU Delft have made an active contribution to this agenda.

Overstroomde riolen, plastic afval, lekkages van waterleidingen… Ook onder de grond kent Nederland grote wateruitdagingen. Met menselijke kracht alleen kunnen we dat niet oplossen, zegt professor Zoran Kapelan. Daarom schakelt hij de hulp in van kunstmatige intelligentie en machine learning.

At the request of medical professionals, researchers at TU Delft developed a test method to check whether imported face masks met the safety requirements. And that was necessary, as it turns out, because in total only one-third of the 140 million face masks tested in 19 hospitals passed the safety test.

Every trace or other piece of evidence at a crime scene has to be thoroughly examined. Traces that cannot be taken away or stored, such as blood spatters, is visualised with a ruler to indicate its size. TU Delft and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) have developed a new method for the police that will soon make the ruler obsolete and make it easier to measure all kinds of forensic evidence.

The heavy precipitation along with the high water of July 2021 in the Netherlands and surrounding countries was an extreme and exceptional event with major social consequences in Limburg. Commissioned by the Expertise Network for Water Safety (ENW), a broad consortium of knowledge institutions, led by Delft University of Technology and Deltares, has now made an initial analysis of the available information on a range of topics.

On Monday 6 September, Delft University Fund awarded Max Mulder the title of Professor of Excellence 2021. Mulder is Professor of Control & Simulation in the Department of Control & Operations at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering (AE).

NWO has announced that Professor Lieven Vandersypen (TU Delft/QuTech) has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest award in Dutch Science.

Researchers from the technical universities of Delft and Munich have invented a new type of molecular trap that can hold a single protein in place for hours to study its natural behavior – a million times longer than before.