A pleasing interim balance shown by the technical cooperation programs in progress between Switzerland and Columbia drew representatives of both countries to a festive event on August 15thin Medellin celebrating the 10th anniversary of the partnership. The Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has entrusted Empa with the task of supporting Columbia in the realization of climate protection projects, as well as clarifying the opportunities for recycling electronic waste in Bogota und Medellin.

Nanotechnology offers the textile and clothing industry great opportunities for developing innovative products and expanding into new markets. This is only true, however, if the new technologies represent no health risk to mankind and are harmless to our environment. In order to pave the way for the completely safe use of nanotechnology in the textile branch, in November last year Empa, together with the Swiss Textile Federation (TVS) and the Nano-Cluster Bodensee invited decision-makers from the textile industry, the research sector and the regulatory authorities to the first «NanoSafe Textiles» Dialog meeting. Held at Empa’s St. Gall site, more than fifty invitees attended the event.

In the modern scientific world the traditional boundaries between individual disciplines are becoming less and less distinct. In a truly interdisciplinary environment different scientific branches fuse together. This trend is particularly noticeable in the boundaries between nano, bio and information technologies, as well as those of the cognitive sciences. Implantable microchips, which, thanks to nano know how, can communicate with the body’s cells and transmit data on to a computer, are but a single example of this. At the invitation of the Commission for Ethics and Technology of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW), about thirty experts in the field met in mid November last year to discuss the convergence of «Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno» and the ethical questions this trend is raising. One such question is whether the human being can and should be “improved”, and under what conditions such changes might be permissible.

In Switzerland the construction, operation and maintenance of buildings, as well as their renovation, should in future involve the release of as little CO₂ as possible. On the initiative of Peter Richner, the head of the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department at Empa, the «Future Construction» platform has produced a strategy paper in which the civil engineering industry, building authorities, financial institutions and technical universities undertake with immediate effect to avoid the use of fossil fuel heating and cooling systems when constructing new buildings or renovating old ones. This will be made possible partly through Empa’s innovative building technologies.

Two recent international studies by the WHO and OECD have ranked the Swiss health system as «good», but at the same time as also being «too expensive». Switzerland spends 11.5 percent of its Gross National Product for health and is in second place worldwide behind the USA which spends 15 percent. The enormous pressure to reduce health costs affects hospitals as well. On the one hand they must do their share to reduce costs while at the same time the quality of medical care must not be compromised. This past September, representatives of hospitals, government officials, health managers and planners, medical facilities architects and other involved persons in the health field came together at the Empa-Academy and held a conference on the topic of costs reduction with the help of new technical innovations and how new Swiss hospital operating rooms standards can ensure that the quality of care shall remain high.

A road-traffic load simulator as large as an articulated lorry has arrived at Empa. The machine is designed to proof road surfaces and indicate when any renovation work is due. Before the monster vehicle, which is twelve meters long and three high, is let loose on Switzerland’s roads, though, it will spend the next three months under the watchful eyes of Empa specialists, proving that it can indeed do what it promises, i.e. load a roadway so heavily that its surface ages and wears in a fraction of the time it would take under normal usage.

Our continuously growing population demands an ever greater degree of mobility. How this challenge can be met in an environmentally responsible way was explained by three specialists from research and industry at the 35^th Science Apéro held recently at Empa. The event, entitled «Motors and Drives for the Future», gave them the opportunity to present alternative ideas and drive system projects using fossil fuels, which they hope will help enable environmentally friendly motors make the breakthrough into everyday use.

Those who strive to balance the demands of family and profession find that Empa is, quite literally, an outstanding employer. On July 9th 2007 the expert organization «UND – Family and Occupation for Men and Women» awarded Empa its seal of approval or «Prädikat» in recognition of the institution’s many years of effort in encouraging a family friendly working environment and ensuring equal opportunities for men and women – and its intention to continue to play a pioneering role in these areas in the future.

Nanotechnology is flying high. That was amply shown by the fact that the Bern Kursaal was filled to capacity last Thursday and Friday for the second edition of the Swiss NanoConvention. The public in  attendance was at least as varied as the topics presented, ranging from a member of the Swiss Federal Council to international “Big Names” in Nano, industry representatives, insurance and finance experts as well as lawyers, philosophers and ethicists. Altogether about 300 persons accepted Empa's invitation to take part in discussing the «key technology of the 21st Century», and its effects on science, economy, health, environment and society.

Chemically-based flame retardants have paved the way for many plastics to become ubiquitous materials in our daily life. However, what protects plastics and similar substances from fire on the one hand represents a potential risk to the environment, the animal kingdom and humankind on the other. Empa chemists have now taken a close look at hexabromocyclododecane  (HBCD), a widely used bromine-containing fire retarding agent. The investigation revealed that HBCD occurs in several different forms, or so called stereoisomers. In cooperation with the ETH Zurich, the Empa researchers have developed an analytical technique which allowed them for the first time ever to identify eight different HBCD stereoisomers and determine their structure. The complicated molecular geometry of the substance has important implications – only two isomers accumulate in fish tissue. How the HBCD types otherwise differ must be investigated further, for only then can a comprehensive risk evaluation of HBCD be made, according to the Empa scientists.

Last Tuesday, Claude Nicollier, the first Swiss in space, was a guest lecturer and enthralled a large audience with his lecture on «Progress in Space». The astrophysicist and Astronaut who flew into space four times and managed to help repair the Hubble Space Telescope talked about manned space flights and his own experiences. Nicollier is convinced that man will reach Mars in this century.

As part of the «Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften» in Berlin on 9 June 2007, an Empa team headed by Silvain Michel will be competing in a regatta with its innovative blimp. As far as the race is concerned, project manager Michel expects to finish somewhere in the middle of the field, but with regard to electroactive polymers (EAPs), the key features of the Empa blimp, his team is well ahead of the international competition. These electrically activated elastic polymer films currently give the blimp its excellent manoeuvrability. In one of the subsequent versions, they should even make it possible for the blimp to «swim» along through the air like a trout.

Biofuels are not necessarily more eco-friendly than fossil fuels. This was shown by a new study through Empa, commissioned by the three Federal Offices for Energy, Environment and Agriculture. The study examined the ecological balances of various biofuels. Though some biofuels reduce greenhouse gases by a third or more in comparison with gasoline or diesel, the cultivation and processing of raw biofuel materials such as corn or soybeans, cause serious environmental impacts to occur, and this clearly worsens the total ecological balance. Biofuel then, is not the same as biologically friendly fuel, and this difference is an important consideration in the present discussions regarding support measures for biofuels. In addition the study shows that the quantity of locally available bioenergy sources is rather limited.

«I very much hope that the NanoConvention becomes an annual event,» commented Peter Gehr of the University of Bern after the first NanoConvention in June 2006. His wish was Empa’s command, as the saying goes. On 28th and 29th June 2007 all those with an interest in nano-topics are invited to the «Swiss NanoConvention 2007», to be held in the Kursaal Bern. According to Empa-CEO, Louis Schlapbach, the event is intended to strengthen and encourage the nano-dialog in Switzerland above and beyond the constraints of disciplinary borders. In addition, it should not only act as a platform for fascinating lectures and interesting discussions but also serve as a “contact exchange and science market place”.

Last Thursday the six “NanoAmbassadors“ in the German Museum in Munich were presented to the public. Among them is toxicologist Harald Krug, who since the beginning of this years chairs the Laboratory of “Materials- Biology Interactions” at Empa in St. Gallen, and there, researches, among others, the effects of different nanomaterials on human and animal cells and tissues. The „NanoAmbassadors“ – an initiative launched last year by the German Museum in Munich – are a group of scientists who have undertaken the task of informing the public about nanotechnology, and engaging in a dialogue through public discussions, experts' lectures, exhibitions and other events, related to this topic.

Under the auspices of United Nations University (UNU), an international initiative called «Solving the E-Waste Problem» (StEP) is officially launched Wednesday, March 7. Its goals are extending the life of computers and other electronic equipment as well as markets for their reuse, reducing pollution and improving the salvage of increasingly valuable components in electrical and electronic scrap (E-scrap). Empa and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) are Swiss StEP partners, joining UNU and other governmental and academic institutions as well as major high-tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Dell, Ericsson, Philips and Cisco Systems.

The GEOMON project to be financed over the next four years in the amount of 6.6 million Euro by the European Union, creates a network connecting 38 research establishments in the European Union, Norway, Russia and Switzerland. The goal of this network is to collect detailed data pertaining to air quality and climate and detect any changes in good time. The collected data will make it possible to have more exact forecasts about the climatic development and its effects. The project will be coordinated by the French «Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Environnement et du Climat», a CNRS institute («Centre national de la recherche scientifique»), located in Gif sur Yvette. Swiss entities taking part are Empa, the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Institute for applied physics at the University of Berne.

Technology transfer to the Far East: in January Empa researcher Felix Weber and his industrial partners tested for the first time their newly developed, smart cable damping system on site. The “smart” damping system adjusts optimally the damping force to the actual vibration amplitudes and stay cables properties. It is designed to prevent the cable-stayed Sutong Bridge over the Yangtze River from dangerous cable vibrations. The cables are up to 540 m long since the Sutong Bridge has the largest free span – 1080 meters between pylons – of any cable-stayed bridge in the world.

Researchers and industry representatives met at Empa on Friday at the international «Hydrogen & Energy» symposium organized by the laboratory of the same name in order to compare notes on the progress of work in the field of hydrogen technology and to discuss the potential of hydrogen as a sustainable energy source for the future. The conclusion: As a «clean» energy source, hydrogen does indeed have the potential to dramatically change our energy supplies within a few decades. Given the declining stocks of fossil resources, we need to press ahead with research with the aim of making hydrogen available as an efficient and economic source of energy as soon as possible.

The trend to miniaturization in the microelectronics field makes it increasingly difficult to manufacture these tiny devices. It would be much easier if all that was necessary was to mix together the substances from which they were made and then let the components put themselves together without any external help! The magic words are “molecular self-assembly”, and they make a researcher’s pulse rate go up. Empa scientists working in this field were recently able to chalk up a significant success in that they managed to formulate two organic molecules in such a way that they organized themselves spontaneously into long parallel chains (so-called nanowires) on a specially prepared gold surface. Selective self-assembly on surfaces and the fundamental processes which control this phenomenon are, however, not only critical in the area of molecular electronics but also in heterogeneous catalysis – a process used in automotive catalytic converters – and in sensor technologies.

Just about as soon as they are manufactured and released into the atmosphere, new air pollutants can be identified and measured by Empa researchers. Ever more sensitive environmental analysis instrumentation make this possible, as two recently published studies show very impressively. Environmental scientists from Empa were able to demonstrate for the first time the presence of two new halogenated foaming agents in the air above the Jungfraujoch, data which will allow estimates to be made of the worldwide emissions of these climate-changing substances. This information is essential for a better understanding of chemical processes in the atmosphere, and the role played by these chemical in global warming. The two substances under investigation currently show relatively low concentrations in the atmosphere but the levels are increasing rapidly.

On 26th January Walter Muster’s decades of scientific work at Empa were honored by the award of the Mirko Roš Medal. At a festive ceremony in the Empa Academy the research institution took leave of the erstwhile member of the Board of Directors and Head of the Advanced Materials and Surfaces Department on the occasion of his retirement

Conventional propeller driven airships have their disadvantages. They are inefficient, and thereby wasteful of energy, and they are noisy too. Empa scientists are looking to solve both these problems by using a technology which is simultaneously very advanced and yet simple in concept – their design lets an airship “swim” through the air like a fish moving through water. That this idea could become reality thanks to the development of electroactive polymers (EAPs) is demonstrated by the first flight trials as well as computer simulations. The EAPs need further development, however, and their reliability and useful lifetime must be improved.

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are frequently used today to strengthen buildings to make them suitable for new applications and uses, as well as to prevent them suffering earthquake damage. The success of this modern material is due to its ease of use and its lightness. New products, however, must be handled with a certain degree of caution. In mid-January experts from all over Europe gathered at Empa to discuss their experiences involving novel applications with these fiber composite materials.

Ulrich Tilgner, the prominent near east correspondent and director of the ZDF office in Teheran, lectured on January 17, at a well attended Empa Academy gathering in Dubendorf, about „Education, Technology and Economic Developments in Iran“. Herewith is a report about his thrilling speech.

A study conducted by Empa shows that diesel engines with particle filters fitted after manufacture emit about 40 per cent less particulate matter than those without filters. This is, however, significantly less efficient than the performance of production series filters fitted during engine manufacture, which remove more than 95 per cent of the minute particles from the diesel exhaust gas. Furthermore, despite claims by the manufacturers to the contrary, retrofitted filters can increase fuel consumption by up to 3 per cent, depending on the driving cycle.