Archive: News of Technical University of Darmstadt

Investigation at TU Darmstadt: Sterilisation process at high temperature recommended

FFP-2 respiratory masks worn by hospital personnel and the emergency services can be used multiple times without any concerns and continue to meet the strictest hygiene standards if they have been sterilised in advance for twenty minutes at 121°C. These are the findings of analyses carried out by TU Darmstadt for the Alice Hospital Darmstadt. The results should help to ease the supply shortages for FFP-2 masks.

E-learning tips by Alexandra Stang

Alexandra Stang gained experience in digitally supported teaching while still a student herself. She has been working at the Centre for Intercultural Competence (ZIKK), which is assigned to the university's language centre, for almost two years. Her tasks include organising an intercultural planning game project seminar on cross-site virtual cooperation in heterogeneous teams and dealing extensively with webinars and student media projects. She offers various useful tips here.

Proof of Concept: Professor Koeppl awarded 150,000 euros grant by the European Research Council

Two scientists at the TU Darmstadt have been awarded a “Proof of Concept” grant of 150,000 euros by the European Research Council (ERC). Professor Heinz Koeppl received the award for his project “LONGSENSE”, Professor Leopoldo Molina-Luna for his project “STARE”.

Models confirm observations

Plants use negative pressure to draw water from the soil. Why the pressure value does not fall below minus 100 bar was previously an unsolved mystery. An interdisciplinary and international research group with the participation of the Technical University of Darmstadt now reports in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that apparently so-called lipid aggregates in the plant saps are responsible for the phenomenon. Simulations and model calculations show how the lipids lead to the formation of expanding cavities that cause the fluid column to break off when the negative pressures become too great.

Proof of Concept: Professor Molina-Luna awarded 150,000 euros grant by the European Research Council

Two scientists at the TU Darmstadt have been awarded a “Proof of Concept” grant of 150,000 euros by the European Research Council (ERC). Professor Leopoldo Molina-Luna received the award for his project “STARE”. We shall be presenting the other recipient of the grant, the “LONGSENSE” project by Professor Heinz Koeppl, in the next few days.

Interview with Professor Koenders

Laboratory experiments are a challenge for digital teaching during the corona crisis. Professor Eddie Koenders from the Institute of Construction and Building Materials and his colleague Professor Uwe Rüppel from the Institute of Numerical Methods and Informatics in Civil Engineering had a brilliant idea in 2019. With the support of student assistants, they programmed and developed a virtual building physics laboratory for students using VR goggles and a smartphone. Their “VR4Teach” project received the Athene Award for Digital Teaching from the Carlo and Karin Giersch Foundation.

Cryptography expert receives the Copernicus Award

Their many years of joint cutting-edge research in the field of cryptography and IT security is honoured with a prestigious award: Sebastian Faust, Professor of Computer Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt, and Professor Dr. Stefan Dziembowski (University of Warsaw) will each receive half of the Copernicus Award 2020 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the Fundacja na rzecz Nauki Polskiej (FNP, Foundation for Polish Science), which is endowed with 200,000 euros.

Professor Wolfgang Ensinger is carrying out research into nanopore membranes

Professor Wolfgang Ensinger and his working group in the Department of Materials and Earth Sciences have been working together with the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research for many years on the production and use of nanopores in plastic film. Nanopore membranes are also suitable for filtering and separating purposes – and can thus be used to filter the coronavirus out of waste water.

Interview with Christian Hoppe, Head of the E-Learning Working Group

Christian Hoppe is Head of the E-Learning Working Group at the Center for Educational Development and Technology (HDA) at TU Darmstadt. His team is currently working almost around the clock so that the university, teachers and students can begin a digital semester. In this interview, the teaching graduate who specialises in media didactics talks about the challenges and pragmatism, virtual lectures and what services and assistance TU Darmstadt is able to offer.

TU Vice President Heribert Warzecha on the digital summer semester

Professor Heribert Warzecha, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity, explains how the corona crisis is impacting the summer semester that begins on 20 April.

Handling the coronavirus was the main theme

Due to the current coronavirus pandemic, the annual General Assembly for the CLUSTER network (Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology in Education and Research) was held in virtual form for the first time on 3 April 2020. The meeting of 36 representatives from 13 different countries was organised by TU Darmstadt.

Protection against attacks via side channels

Spectacular security loopholes discovered in modern processors are setting new challenges for scientists: Computer Science Professor Heiko Mantel and his team are studying the danger of difficult to detect attacks via so-called side channels and possible countermeasures.

ERC Advanced Grants for TU Professors Durante and Martínez-Pinedo

The two TU professors and GSI physicists PhD Marco Durante und Dr. Gabriel Martínez-Pinedo have each been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. The prestigious research grant from the European Union underlines the outstanding quality of their scientific research. Research and teaching at TU will also benefit from these grants.

Memory chips for the next computer generations

Researchers in Darmstadt around materials scientists Professor Lambert Alff and Professor Leopoldo Molina-Luna are developing memory devices for a new type of chip.

Boiling experiment aboard the ISS successfully completed

Many things work in slow motion in space. And researchers at TU Darmstadt are making good use of this fact. Their aim is to investigate the physical process of boiling in more detail.