04.02.2010 – With winning the elite cluster-competition, the EfficiencyCluster LogistikRuhr impressively emphasizes the excellence of the Logistics-Science Center Dortmund. Due to intensive networking with the neighboring research institutions, like the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering (ISST), the profile area production and logistics of TU Dortmund already holds a leading position internationally.
25.01.2010 – Concrete is a modern building material, which is used on nearly every construction site worldwide and which has obtained high acceptance among planners and users, thanks to its varied field of application. Due to its high density, standard concrete only has insufficient heat insulation, which implicates that residential buildings made of concrete need additional heat insulation. The light cellular or foam concretes with a good heat insulation produced to date, are hardened by means of costly and energy-intensive processes under high pressure and high temperature in autoclaves. Or their technical applicability is strongly limited due to their low strength. The team Prof. Dr. Bernhard Middendorf, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Neisecke and Dr. Armin Just from the Chair of Building Materials at Technische Universität Dortmund had the plan to develop a building material made of concrete, which combines the strength and flexible applicability of standard concrete and the low density and the good heat insulation of cellular and foam concrete.
17.12.2009 – Catmint can trigger ecstatic emotional states in cats. But the same material also is a renewable resource for the synthesis of englerin A, a potential drug against kidney cancer. Now chemists at TU Dortmund have succeeded in the first chemical synthesis of englerin A.
24.11.2009 – Tremendous joy not only at the Faculty of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering (BCI) at TU Dortmund! With the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG) granting the SFB (collaborative research center)/Transregio 63 “Integrated Chemical Processes in Liquid Multiphase Systems”, the Technische Universität now possesses four of these big research projects. The new Transregio deals with the development of new methods to process raw materials for the chemical industry.
27.10.2009 – Nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases, but the technology does have another rather nasty by-product: radioactive waste. One big source of low-level waste is the water used to cool the core in the most common form of reactor, the pressurised-water reactor. A team of researchers led by Börje Sellergren of the Technische Universität Dortmund and Sevilimedu Narasimhan of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Kalpakkam, India, think they have found a new way to deal with it. Their solution is to mop up the radioactivity in the water with plastic.
06.10.2009 – The Graduate School of Logistics (GS of Logistics) is an institution of TU Dortmund in cooperation with the respective faculties of the universities Duisburg/Essen, Paderborn and Münster. The Graduate School wants to support basic research and economy-oriented, application-oriented research by funding at least 30 percent of all doctoral candidates with scholarships directly from economy. Another 30 jobs are to be raised by the land North Rhine-Westphalia, the Fraunhofer Society and other research foundations. The GS of Logistics aligns itself into the strategic goals of LogistikCampus Ruhr, an initiative of the land NRW. The Graduate School of Logistics was officially opened on October 1st 2009.
04.09.2009 – Transport Researchers at Technische Universität Dortmund analyzed traffic accident statistics and came to a surprising result: metropolitans have less severe traffic accidents than rural inhabitants. This invalidates one of the most important arguments in favor of a house in the countryside.
18.08.2009 – Recently, several astronomical experiments have revealed mysterious components of elementary particles. But up until now, the origin of electrons and positrons is unknown. Is dark matter the actual origin of this radiation, as some physicists speculate? Now an international team of astrophysicists, including the Bochum junior professor Dr. Julia Becker and the Dortmund physicist Prof. Dr. Dr. Wolfgang Rohde, have found a simple explanation: giant stars, at least fifteen times the mass of our sun, emit elementary particles in a final explosion when they die. The flux of the electrons and positrons calculated on the basis of this theory fits in with the enigmatic signals observed during these astronomical experiments. The six-strong team of international scientists outlines how their theory of supernova explosions explains the observations in the latest edition of Physical Review Letters.
24.07.2009 – Dr. Börje Sellergren from the Institute of Environmental Research (INFU) at TU Dortmund and colleagues have designed a polymer that can improve the shelf life or drinks, such as beer. Sellergren and other scientists working on the project have developed a way of removing riboflavin (vitamin B2), which is responsible for driving photooxidation reactions that affect the flavour and shelf life of many drinks, according to the latest online publication of "Chemical Technology".
25.06.2009 – TU Dortmund is among the winners of the competition “Bio.NRW” of the NRW-Ministry of Innovation. With the Chair of Technical Biochemistry (head Prof. Andreas Schmid) in charge, TU-scientists together with their colleagues from the Research Center Jülich are going to develop a new technology platform for the field biocatalysis within the next three years. The Ministry of Innovation funds this project with overall 843,000 Euro – 540,000 of that for TU.
08.06.2009 – "F3 Factory": Flexible, Fast and Future Factory - European Chemistry Consortium Begins the Journey into the Future of Production / Bayer Technology Services GmbH coordinates EU-funded project on paradigm shift in production Europe-wide collaboration of leading major enterprises and research institutes / Sustainable chemical production to generate a lasting competitive advantage / Potential savings approaching four billion euros / Key application include solvent-free polymers, innovative surfactants, compounds for the health care industry and materials from renewable resources. Four chairs of the Dortmund Departement of Chemical and Biochemical engineering are collaborating in this project.
05.06.2009 – As early as 2007 the physicist Prof. Dr. Götz S. Uhrig, chair holder of Theoretical Physics I at TU Dortmund, devised a method to keep the fragile states of quantum bits stable for as long as possible. The method is based on a universal optimization of a sequence of pulses controlling the quantum bit. But until now it was not possible to experimentally prove his theoretical proposal. Now scientists from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) have conducted an experiment to verify the theory of their Dortmund colleague. In the latest edition of “Nature” they describe how they were able to keep the specifically induced states in atomic nuclei stable longer than before by means of a sequence of laser pulses calculated by Uhrig.
04.06.2009 – During his career Rudolf Kargus saved 23 penalties. That’s a record. But does this really make him the penalty-killer in the history of the German premier league? After all, there are not many goalkeepers in this league who let through more penalties than he did. And maybe it was just luck because he had to take on many bad penalty-takers. Now a team of statisticians of TU Dortmund produced a “fair” ranking. This list takes account of the real individual ability of all 280 goalkeepers in the history of the German premier league.
28.05.2009 – Once again TU Dortmund achieved a success in raising third-party funds. The German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG) gave its final OK to the new collaborative research center (Sonderforschungsbereich SFB) “Non-Linear Dynamic Models in Economics and Technology”. At TU Dortmund 13 senior and 17 junior researchers are participating. Partner of TU Dortmund is Ruhr-Universität Bochum where four chairs and one group of junior scientists are taking part. Initially DFG will fund the large research project for four years with an annual amount of 1.9 million Euros.
27.04.2009 – A new machine for bending profiles was presented at this year’s Hannover Fair (20. – 24. April) by the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Construction (IUL) of TU Dortmund. Subject of the project, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), is three-dimensional profile bending. For this purpose a process and a machine have been developed.
24.04.2009 – Standing ovations in the Audimax: in a ceremony about 800 guests paid tribute to Carl Djerassi who received the honorary doctorate of the Faculty of Culture Studies yesterday (April 23rd). In his laudatory speech Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, professor for comparative studies at Stanford University, especially appreciated Djerassi’s work as a writer and author of lyrics, short stories, novels and stage plays. Although the prominent chemist, born in Vienna in 1923, is best known as the “Father of the Birth Control Pill”, he has been focusing on his second and also very successful career as a literate for twenty years. Among others, his scientific work already earned him 20 honorary doctorates. But the Dortmund honorary doctorate is still an exception as it is the first one for his literary work and the first one from a German-speaking university. “Therefore this 21st doctorate is very important for me” emphasized Djerassi in his entertaining speech.
07.04.2009 – Starting in April 2009, the International Office (AAA - Akademisches Auslandsamt) offers three new projects for Dortmund and international students. The offer can be realized due to the funding of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD – Deutscher Akademischer Ausstauschdienst). Besides the model projects “International Student Councils” and “Integration into the Urban Society”, the AAA also offers students the chance to acquire a certificate about their engagement in the international field. Apart from that, intercultural training and application workshops will be offered for students who are interested in a semester or traineeship abroad. In cooperation with the “Metropolis Ruhr (UAMR) the AAA publishes a special issue concerning “international experience” in the next edition of the campus newspaper “Pflichtlektüre”.
03.04.2009 – The advantages of distributed power supply are obvious: the proximity to the end consumer allows for low-loss short transmission paths. Renewable energies like, for example, private photovoltaic or combined head and power plants can effectively be used in distributed power supply systems. The research project SMEDEA (Standardized Smart Metering as Key Function of Energy Efficiency of Distributed Generation) develops ways and standards for Smart Metering systems considering distributed generation. Smart Meters are to be available for end consumers as from 2010. Therefore the new function for control and organization of distributed generation and supply systems has to be defined as soon as possible. Today (2009 May, 30th) the NRW-Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Christa Thoben, personally presented the notice of granting for funding in the amount of 370.000 €. The project was successful in the competition “Energie.NRW” and is coordinated by Christian Rehtanz, professor for power systems and power economics at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at TU Dortmund. Partners from industry are EVB Energie AG, one of the leading service providers for power supply companies, as well as Energieversorgung Oelde GmbH.
20.03.2009 – Again Technische Universität Dortmund proves successful in an advanced field of research: on 1st April the “Graduate-Cluster for Industrial Biotechnology” starts as a joint post-graduate school of TU Dortmund and the universities Bielefeld and Düsseldorf. The Europe-wide biggest PhD-program in this field of research is embedded in the NRW-network “CLIB2021 Cluster Industrial Biotechnology”. TU Dortmund is the speaker university of this unique PhD program. The program, ending in December 2012, allows 84 young scientists – 28 of them in Dortmund – to take their doctoral degrees on the internally highest level. The North Rhine-Westphalian Innovation Ministry supports the 7.2-million euro project with 4.1 million Euros. The rest of the money comes from the universities and the biotechnology companies organized in CLIB2021.
16.03.2009 – Technische Universität Dortmund very much welcomed the announcement of the North Rhine-Westphalian innovation minister, Prof. Andreas Pinkwart, to support the establishment of an interdisciplinary research center “LogisticCampus” with six million Euros. TU rector Prof. Dr. Ursula Gather explicitly emphasized that it now comes down to integrate the research center into and connect it with the Dortmund university: “Logistics is an interdisciplinary subject and with mechanical engineering, economics, mathematics, statistics and, not least, computer science the Dortmund university is well prepared for profoundly shaping all aspects of logistics in its scientific work”.