TU Delft’s best 24 innovations were presented at the first-ever ‘Delft Innovation Award’ ceremony, held last Tuesday. Delta presents the winner and two other favourites of the newspaper’s science desk.
And the winner was Professor Bert Wolterbeek, with his entry ‘Chemical Separation’ – a procedure that allows a wider range of nuclear reactors to produce medical isotopes. Bob Ursem, director of the botanical garden, received the Demo award, which will allow him to have a 20,000 euros prototype made of his fine-dust reduction system. The public’s favourite was Rolf Hut’s invention, Disdro, a microphone turned into a rain meter.
TU Delft’s Executive Board initiated the Delft Innovation Award (DIA) in an attempt to make innovations more visible and put researchers in the limelight. “Scientific inventions form the link between pure science and ground-breaking innovations that are applicable for economic or societal benefit,” according to a statement on TU Delft’s website. The competition was open to all scientific staff members. On the application form they had to explain the applicability and innovativeness of their submissions. Variable criteria, of which two had to be fulfilled, included sustainability, aesthetics, simplicity and usability. Eight jury members, handpicked for their links to technology and innovation, assessed the submissions, under the jury presidency of Rector Karel Luyben.
Het instituut onderbouwt dit advies door twee kennisdomeinen te vergelijken die op het eerste gezicht veel van elkaar weg hebben: rivieronderzoek en kustonderzoek. Onderzoekers van rivieren blijken hun wetenschappelijke inzichten prima te kunnen bundelen en bruikbaar te maken voor beleid, terwijl kustonderzoekers daar niet in slagen: hun onderzoek is te gefragmenteerd.
Optimistsich
Eigenlijk is het een optimistische boodschap die het Rathenau Instituut brengt: als het goed wordt aangepakt, kunnen onderzoeksprogramma’s wetenschappelijke excellentie en maatschappelijk nut wel degelijk samenbrengen.
Cynisme
Daarover heerst soms enig cynisme, blijkt uit het voorwoord van Rathenau-directeur Jan Staman. “Het overheersende beeld is dat grote programma’s voornamelijk dienen voor het verdelen van onderzoeksgeld”, schrijft hij. “De agenda van de onderzoekers zou de inhoud bepalen en de overheid, die vraagt om maatschappelijke impact, zou het nakijken hebben. Meer dan een stapel ongerelateerde specialistische proefschriften leveren onderzoeksprogramma’s niet op, zo is de indruk.”
Rivieronderzoek
Toch kan het ook anders, menen de rapporteurs van het Rathenau, en dat bewijst het rivieronderzoek. Sinds de jaren tachtig staan daarin zowel het milieu als de waterwering centraal, en werken disciplines als ecologie, aardwetenschappen en waterbouwkunde goed samen. Dat heeft tot een nieuwe vorm van rivierbeheer geleid: cyclisch uiterwaardenbeheer.
Kustonderzoek
Nee, dan het kustonderzoek. Daar werken de verschillende disciplines langs elkaar heen. Daardoor zijn er twee ‘cross-disciplinaire’ takken van kustonderzoek gekomen: de ene gericht op de internationale wetenschap en de andere op de toepassing. Er zijn eigenlijk twee soorten bundeling gekomen, die elkaar negeren.
Taakverdeling
Hier kan de wetenschap lering uit trekken, vindt het Rathenau Instituut. Vooral goede taakverdeling blijkt belangrijk: “Als er onderzoekers zijn die de kennisintegratie op zich nemen, kunnen anderen bijdragen met specialistisch onderzoek. Zolang er maar aandacht is voor raakvlakken en gedeelde invalshoeken.”
Radiodiagnostics
Every now and then news media announce a possible shortage of radioisotopes because one or more of the high flux reactors where medical isotopes are produced has been decommissioned. Currently there are only five reactors worldwide suited for producing 99Molybdeen – the precursor of 99mTechnetium, which is used for cancer diagnosis. The invention by the faculty of Applied Science’s radiation and isotopes for health section aims to rectify the pending shortages: the new 99Mo production process they developed doesn’t require the high neutron fluxes of special high flux reactors. In fact, more nuclear reactors can be used for the isotope production.
The key to their innovation is the chemical separation of irradiated 99Mo from the 98Mo target. At first glance this seems impossible, since the capture of a neutron does not change the chemical properties. But Bert Wolterbeek and his team have shown that the recoil energy of the formed 99Mo makes the atom breaks loose from its neighbours, which allows it to be flushed out and collected. So far, up to 25 percent of the activated Mo-atoms have been collected afterwards.
Four patents protect the Chemical Separation invention. The team is currently developing technology to scale up the production. The 20,000 euro award will be used in the research. “It gives us a bit more elbowroom”, says Wolterbeek.
Virtual Creation
It must feel a bit like being the good Lord in the act of Creation: you simply draw a dashed blue line towards the ocean, and a rich meandering river emerges, complete with realistic sandy shores and reed banks. SketchaWorld, a software jointly developed by the computer graphics group at EEMCS and TNO, aims to do for virtual world design what Google’s Sketchup did for 3D modeling: make it accessible to the masses. The user simply defines the type of landscape and adds waterways, vegetation, roads and urban structures at will. The computer keeps track of the structures in several layers, while automatically filling in the details (like a bridge where a road crosses a river) and providing the photorealistic rendering. “Creating such a virtual environment used to require months of digital slavery,” says Dr Rafael Bidarra, only half jokingly. It was that enormous non-creative effort that inspired him four years ago to try and develop software that takes care of the tedious detailing, thus allowing designers to concentrate on the landscape instead of the pixels. “SketchaWorld allows users to concentrate on what they want and forget about the how to make it.” Eventually, the resulting 3D virtual worlds may be exported for use in (serious) games and simulations. Bidarra hopes that a techno-starter will bring the technology to the market.
Eco-apartments
Too much wind last Monday hindered the assembly of the Concept House prototype on the grounds of RDM. But knowing its developer, Professor Mick Eekhout, a new attempt will be made as soon as the weather permits. The Concept House is the result of four years of development between the TU’s faculty of Architecture and a dozen enterprises involved in the building and installation sectors, with each contributing 10,000 euro per year to develop an energy-producing apartment. Other contributors followed, which led to the creation of a budget for building a prototype – a definitive first in the faculty’s history.
The Concept House produces energy via PV-panels situated on its roof. Moreover, the house saves energy by recirculation of heat and has been equipped with the most energy-efficient cooling and heating: a heat pump coupled to a deep heat basin. Measuring 7.5 by 15 metres, the apartments are meant for normal families. The wood-framed and tiled ‘shoe boxes’ may be stacked four stories high in the form of urban villas.
Eekhout is still looking for a ‘normal family’ to take up residence at the RDM site. However, such a family shouldn’t mind being studied by industrial design researchers eager to record their energy behaviour.
www.unfccc.int
Do you have a question or comment about this article?
delta@tudelft.nl
Comments are closed.