Press Releases

Can virus replication really be influenced by plant extracts? Researchers at the Fraunhofer Translational Center for Regenerative Therapies at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC and at the Institute of Virology and Immunobiology at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg have investigated this question.

This year's winners of the Ursula M. Händel Animal Welfare Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft have been determined. As the DFG has now announced, the team from the Fraunhofer Translational Center for Regenerative Therapies (TLZ-RT) and the University of Würzburg will be honored for its research into alternatives to animal testing based on cell-based tissue models, and will share the 80,000 euro prize with Dr. Michael K. Melzer from the University of Ulm.

The consortium Innovation by Creative Economy (ICE) is coordinated by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Today, it was selected by the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) as a new Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) in the cultural and creative sectors. The European partnership EIT Culture & Creativity aims to support students and start-ups to generate innovative products and processes in the creative industries and for the cultural heritage sector.

What otherwise takes hours in the laboratory, involves annoying waiting times and many sources of error, can now be accomplished by a robot in less time, well digitally documented and with high reproducibility. Automation of synthesis processes for nanoparticles can be a milestone for the use of new therapeutic and diagnostic medical devices – and at the same time increase occupational safety and relieve highly qualified laboratory personnel from monotonous routines.

The SPARTACUS research project as part of the EU research initiative BATTERY 2030+ has now been running for around a year. The project has successfully mastered the first milestones and project goals. On the way to sensor-based optimization of charging times, range and service life for lithium-ion batteries, the SPARTACUS project team has worked on a number of partial aspects over the past 12 months. Now the individual components can be combined into a complete system.

Technological sovereignty and job security in Germany, the sustainable rethinking and redirection in the use of raw materials - the most efficient possible use and resource-conserving utilization concepts - are major challenges facing the industrial sectors in Europe and worldwide. In particular, the shift away from fossil-fueled mobility to sustainable electromobility based on renewable energy sources has intensified the discussion about the resource requirements for the batteries needed for this. This is precisely where the IDcycLIB joint project comes in with forward-looking concepts.

The Green Batteries Conference 2021 assembles experts from all parts of the battery value chain and achieve a common understanding of the different aspects of sustainable batteries – from raw materials and storage sites to battery concepts, design for recycling, sustainable manufacturing and use, recycling technologies and closing the loop. The conference will be held online on Tuesday afternoons in October 2021, and the response is already very promising.

Bavaria's Secretary of the Interior Gerhard Eck will hand over the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research Würzburg, Prof. Dr. Gerhard Sextl, on Thursday, July 29, 2021 in the Fürstensaal of the Würzburg Residence.

Lithium-ion batteries require in addition to lithium metal a number of sophisticated functional materials for their performance. Some of them sound rather unspectacular: conductive additives. In fact, conductive additives like carbon black or carbon nanotubes are a decisive component for the performance and environmental benignity of lithium-ion batteries. The recently launched collaborative project HiQ-CARB aims to provide new carbons with a superior performance and a low carbon footprint for future green batteries in Europe. HiQ-CARB is receiving EU funding from EIT RawMaterials to scale up and validate this important battery material.

The SUPERSMART research project funded by EIT RawMaterials has shown proof: printed electronic components such as sensors and smart labels on paper can play an essential role in building a smart environment for production, retail and logistics. Efficient and reliable production processes make them economically competitive. In terms of resource conservation, climate and the environment, electronics printed on paper have outstanding advantages over conventional substrates and manufacturing processes for smart electronic components. The SUPERSMART project team is proud to have been selected by the international jury as the winner of the 2021 OE-A competition within the category "Best Publicly Funded Project Demonstrator". The award ceremony will take place on April 15, 2021.