Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology

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.

Website
http://www.empa.ch/
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empa
Some content from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA

Energy & Green Tech

Wind power from the sky

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 ...

Engineering

Knitting roads: Digitalized road construction uses no concrete

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 ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Shellac for printed circuits

More precise, faster, cheaper: Researchers all over the world have been working for years on producing electrical circuits using additive processes such as robotic 3D-printing (so-called robocasting) with great success, but ...

Energy & Green Tech

Battery materials: What is the battery of the future made of?

The Empa research group led by Maksym Kovalenko is researching innovative materials for the batteries of tomorrow. Whether it's fast-charging electric cars or low-cost stationary storage, there's a promising material or a ...

Other

How dangerous are burning electric cars?

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 ...

Energy & Green Tech

Floating power plants

Paper, tin cans, glass—the world recycles as much as possible. So why not declare the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) a recycling product as well? Liquid fuels based on carbon will continue to play an important role ...

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