Environment, energy and efficiency
All around the world, politics, business and research are working on making products and processes more efficient and environmentally friendly – and not only since politicians have been demanding that greenhouse gases and energy consumption should be reduced and that more energy should come from alternative sources. Micro and nanotechnology contribute in many ways towards making products, equipment and systems “greener”.
In everyday life microchips, sensors and actuators reduce the energy consumption of cars, washing machines, heating and computers. Industrial production processes are becoming cheaper and more efficient thanks to microtechnology. Microstructures and high precision manufacturing technologies contribute to making renewable energy more usable and more profitable. In micro-fuel-cells cheap fuels such as hydrogen or methanol provide the power to run mobile electronic devices. “Micro energy harvesting” even harvests energy from the movements or heat from machines and is used to drive microsystems at no cost.
Environment, energy and efficiency technologies are integrated in many products and applications which come from Dortmund – whether as microchips which make cars more efficient, as material and cost-saving production processes for solar cells, as energy-saving light diodes or as nanocoatings which make components more hard-wearing and durable.
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