news

By Birgit Baustädter Batteries are a broad field of research. Energy storage systems of the future should be more powerful, more environmentally friendly, smaller and even safer - work is being done on this at TU Graz. Batteries are many things: cylindrical metal capsules with a plus sign at the top and a minus sign at the bottom, small black packs in our mobile phones, silver buttons in all possible sizes, invisibly integrated in our electric toothbrushes or flat and stacked up in a row in our e-vehicles.

By Werner Schandor In the CHIP project, Ceratizit Austria, TU Darmstadt, Material Center Leoben and TU Graz are improving the recording and analysis of heat flows in milling machining. With sensational results. "What is sensational about our project can be found hidden away in this rather inconspicuous chart," says Franz Haas from the Institute of Production Engineering as he points to a diagram reproducing a saw-toothed temperature progression for the period of a tenth of a second (Figure 2).

By Cecilia Poletti The Christian Doppler Laboratory for Design of High-Performance Alloys by Thermomechanical Processing has recently opened. The leading team, Cecilia Poletti and Friedrich Krumphals, will introduce it. The motivation behind the CD-Laboratory is given by the complexity of simultaneously physical phenomena taking place during industrial processes that involve plastic deformation and heat, as well as during service under thermomechanical loads.

Research includes the fabrication of 3D nano-probes, radio-based positioning systems and the porosity of paper at three new Christian Doppler Laboratories to be opened at TU Graz on 25th April. Despite an abundance of CD lab launches at TU Graz, this was the first time it was necessary to open three CD labs at the same time.

By Birgit Baustädter In the last four years, 14 young scientists worked in the field of advanced materials across Europe in the training network Thinface and are now completing their cross-border doctoral degrees. Joint research and international collaboration are the main cornerstones on which the work which is intensively promoted by TU Graz is built.

TU Graz highlights new features in the Smart City project "STELA". Instead of relying on high tech for the thermal refurbishment of existing multi-storey buildings, social compatibility returns to the centre stage of the project. Anna has now got more room. A wheelchair user, she lives on the ground floor of an 11-storey house in Leoben.

By Ulrike Keller From laptops to generators: plastics are an integral part of every electronic and electrical device. In the research project "PolyTherm" experts from chemistry, materials science, plastics and high-voltage engineering pool their expertise. They're developing and testing novel polymers to facilitate the manufacture of more powerful and compact high-tech products in the future.

Researchers from TU Graz and the University of Graz present the new method of 3D-plasmon tomography in Nature Communications. Light as a carrier of information is indispensable to modern communication technology. The controlled manipulation of light quanta, so-called photons, form the basis for wireless transmission or data transfer in optical glass fibres.

Researchers at the Institute of Solid State Physics map out a radically new approach for designing optical and electronic properties of materials in Advanced Materials. Computational materials design is traditionally used to improve and further develop already existing materials. Simulations grant a deep insight into the quantum mechanical effects which determine material properties.

How EV batteries behave in detail during crash loads and what influence the previous life of the battery has on its safety is being investigated by TU Graz and partners in the K-project "SafeBattery". Further photographic material available at the end of this text. Safety, range and costs: these are the three big premises of electromobility.

Microporous crystals (MOFs) have a great potential as functional materials of the future. Paolo Falcaro of TU Graz et al demonstrate how the growth of MOFs can be precisely controlled on a large scale. Porous crystals called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) consist of metallic intersections with organic molecules as connecting elements.

Electrochemists at TU Graz have managed to use monocrystalline semiconductor silicon as an active storage electrode in lithium batteries. This enables an integrated power supply to be made for microchips with a rechargeable battery. Photographic material available for download at the end of the text Small electrical gadgets, such as mobile phones, tablets or notebooks, are indispensable accompaniments of everyday life.