Recently started projects

We would like to introduce you to three projects recently started at the DWI. Thematically, they could not be more different, but they have a common thread: Their results and achievements contribute to the activities of the DWI's field of impact “Sustainability“ to make a difference for our society:

1) Thermally stable optical force probes for technical high-performance polymer materials
Robert Göstl and his team are developing sensor technology for understanding materials in thir project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - German Research Foundation. The special thing about this project: The expected thermal decomposition temperatures of the probes will be above the processing temperatures of technically used polymers such as polystyrene or polyethylene terephthalate. The resulting findings will help improve the durability of plastic materials.
 
2) GreenProtect - a Sustainable Release System to Produce More Healthy Food with Less Pesticide
To sustainably preserve livelihoods and produce healthy food, the use of fungicides and herbicides must also be significantly reduced. The team around Ulrich Schwaneberg and Andrij Pich is dedicated to this. Together with colleagues from the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry in Halle, they are working on a transfer project funded by the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft to advance a plant protection technology that is already established at our institute - with the aim of transferring it to commercial use.
 
3) Anti-felt nanocoating
Sustainable functional textiles made from wool are becoming increasingly important in the fastest growing market segment of textile processing, "active-wear". In this project funded by AiF e.V., we are developing an ultra-thin, readily water-applied, biodegradable coating that modifies only the fiber surface and shields the attractive forces that contribute to the felting effect without negatively affecting the natural properties of the wool. The application of the coating does not require any additional energy input; rather, the drying process is used to complete crosslinking. In addition, the coating endows the wool with antimicrobial properties.