Archive

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.

Lieven Vandersypen, Professor in Quantum Nanoscience and scientific director of Qu-Tech, has been awarded a Spinoza Prize for his pioneering work on quantum computation, which holds great promise for global problems in health, climate and energy. With his prize Vandersypen also intends to encourage girls to go into the field of technical sciences, as well as help people tell the difference between facts and fabrications. “The first time I heard about quantum computers I thought: how are these things possible?"

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.

We warmly congratulate professor Marileen Dogterom on her appointment as the president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the forum, conscience, and voice of the arts and sciences in the Netherlands, effective June 1, 2022.

Leather is a strong product but has been getting bad press lately due to the fact that it is made of animal skins and the production process is a burden on the environment. The TU Delft student team WaterSkins has come up with a very sustainable alternative: artificial leather made during the treatment of wastewater.

MILabs, a TU Delft spin-off that develops ground breaking imaging devices, is acquired by Rigaku Corporation. Founded in 2006, MILabs provides pre-clinical imaging systems and equipment with higher efficiency and accuracy than conventional alternatives. MILabs has developed a unique system that enables high performance nuclear medicine imaging. The innovative technique contributes to the quest for new therapies and new insights into disease biology in research labs around the world.

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.

Researchers at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) have found a new way to cool radio waves all the way down to their quantum ground state. To do so, they used circuits that employ an analog of the so-called laser cooling technique that is frequently used to cool atomic samples. The device used a recently developed technique the researchers call ‘photon pressure coupling’, which is predicted to be of use in detecting ultra-weak magnetic resonance (MRI) signals or for quantum sensing applications that can help the search for dark matter. The results have been published in Science Advances.

Is there a way to stop SARS-CoV-2-? An international consortium, led by biophysicist David Dulin at VU Amsterdam and in collaboration with Martin Depken from TU Delft, has investigated how to interfere with the viral genome-replication process at the molecular level.