Feb 6, 2023 | Farewell symposium for Alex Dommann
On 19 January, a farewell symposium was held at the Empa campus in St. Gallen in honor of Alex Dommann, member of Empa's Directorate, who retired at the end of January. For ten years, the physicist headed Empa's...
Feb 2, 2023 | Car repairs are better for the environment
Replacement parts for car repairs have a negative impact on the environment. By consistently repairing instead of replacing windshields and bumpers alone, Switzerland could save over 1000 tons of CO2 per year. The...
Feb 2, 2023 | Joining technology
Electronic components are becoming smaller, more complex and more powerful – this calls for new solutions for joining them. An Empa team is developing nanostructured joining materials for the next generation of...
Jan 31, 2023 | Better safe than sorry
Empa researchers have analyzed soil samples from the Josefwiese on behalf of the city of Zurich and detected elevated dioxin levels. Although the levels are still well below the decontamination limit, the city has...
Jan 27, 2023 | Financial support for Empa research project
Empa researchers want to develop a novel type of insulating material from plant-based raw materials or waste products that can permanently bind the CO2 it contains by means of a special heat treatment – and thus act as a...
Jan 23, 2023 | Award for dissertations
Each year, ETH Zurich awards the ETH Medal to a small number of doctoral students whose dissertations were considered particularly outstanding. This year, two Empa researchers received the award.
Jan 19, 2023 | Air pollutants
Large amounts of particulate matter in the air are known to be harmful to human health. But many questions remain unanswered: Which components are particularly dangerous? At what concentrations? The "oxidative potential"...
Jan 17, 2023 | move: New reactor concept for methanation
Synthetic energy carriers are carbon-neutral and make renewable energy transportable and storable in the long term. Synthetically produced methane is one of them. The problem: The production involves rather high energy...
Jan 13, 2023 | Swiss energy prize for adaptive solar façade
On 12 January 2023, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) awarded the prestigious Swiss energy prize "Watt d'Or" for the 16th time. Among the four winning projects is an innovation developed as part of the NEST unit...
Jan 12, 2023 | Energy-saving construction and refurbishment
The competition for the Aerogel Architecture Award 2023 starts on January 12, 2023. Interested parties are cordially invited to submit their projects examples for the use of aerogel in architecture, construction,...
Jan 10, 2023 | New report on global ozone layer
The ozone layer is on track to recover within four decades, with the global phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals already benefitting efforts to mitigate climate change. This is the conclusion of a UN-backed panel of...
Jan 9, 2023 | Funding approved
The Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER) and the AM-TTC Alliance, the umbrella organization of technology transfer centers in the field of Advanced Manufacturing (AM) technologies,...
Jan 6, 2023 | Urs Meier celebrates his 80th birthday
Using carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) in construction was considered revolutionary, if not utopian, a good 40 years ago. Urs Meier, the former director of Empa's Dübendorf campus, who came up with this idea and...
Jan 3, 2023 | Advanced Manufacturing
Pierangelo Gröning, President of the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Transfer Center (AM-TTC) Alliance and Empa's Research Commission and member of Empa's Directorate, explains the research institute's role in AM...