The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology or Empa (German acronym for "Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt") is an interdisciplinary Swiss research and service institution for applied materials sciences and technology. As part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Domain ("ETH-Bereich") it is an institution of the Swiss federation. For the longest time since its foundation in 1880, it concentrated on classical materials testing. Since the late 1980s it has developed into a modern research and development institute.
Engineering
A robotic arm lays out a string in a mandala-like pattern on a bed of gravel. What appears to be a contemporary art performance is basic research that explores new ways in road construction. On the one hand, robot-assisted ...
Mar 24, 2021
0
13
Automotive
The VW Jetta Hybrid on the chassis dynamometer in Empa's Automotive Powertrains Technologies Laboratory had a couple of years of duty as a fleet vehicle. Strapped into the test chamber, it has been part of a new research ...
Jan 26, 2021
0
4
Other
There' s a loud bang, and then it starts: A battery module of an electric car is on fire in the Hagerbach test tunnel. A video of the test impressively shows the energy stored in such batteries: Meter-long flames hiss through ...
Aug 17, 2020
0
6
Energy & Green Tech
The global economy's demand for lithium-ion batteries will be rising sharply in the future. Electric cars depend on them, as do laptops, smartphones and power tools for the construction industry and the DIY sector. Soon another ...
Jul 13, 2020
0
8
Engineering
Laser welding is a process suitable for joining metals and thermoplastics. It has become particularly well established in highly automated production, for example in the automotive industry, because a laser operates with ...
Jun 25, 2020
0
73
Energy & Green Tech
Using exhaust gas measurements taken from the roadside, a team from the University of York and Empa was able to prove the "Dieselgate" scandal has led to positive results. The forced retrofitting of thousands of VW diesel ...
May 20, 2020
1
0
Energy & Green Tech
The semiconductor perovskite is seen as a new hope to bring the production price of solar cells down below that of silicon used so far. Empa is developing new manufacturing processes to make perovskite solar cells not only ...
Feb 6, 2020
0
5
Energy & Green Tech
Can buildings learn to save all by themselves? Empa researchers think so. In their experiments, they fed a new self-learning heating control system with temperature data from the previous year and the current weather forecast. ...
Jan 30, 2020
0
6
Software
Whether for sports, at work or in the living room—depending on activity and environment, our clothing has to meet different demands. Empa scientists have developed a model that predicts how well a given garment will keep ...
Nov 22, 2019
0
9
Energy & Green Tech
Anyone who has ever steered a child's kite knows the feeling: The wind grips the kite and pulls the string. The string is quickly tensioned, the spindle rotates between the fingers and is difficult to control. The question ...
Oct 1, 2019
2
9
