Videos

Have you ever seen a timber-frame building? 🏠 You might be wondering how safe such a structure actually is. Well, the truth is that we don't quite know yet. Structural engineer Dries Byloos 👷 tells you why and how he is pushing for safer and taller timber-frame buildings.

Sujith Reddy is working on perovskites, a promising new solar cell technology that captures more sunlight and costs less than conventional solar cells. Sounds great, right! But there's a catch: these perovskite solar cells ironically tend to break down when exposed to ... light. Sujith wants to uncover the mechanisms behind this degradation in order to improve perovskites and to use them on a larger scale.

Imagine that, instead of emitting harmful CO2 into the atmosphere, we could recycle it and use it to power your future laptop or smartphone. That's what Kevin Van Daele is researching. He is developing new catalysts to efficiently convert CO2 into formic acid, a valuable chemical that could one day power your future electronic devices. 

Do you think we will be able to stop CO2 emissions by 2050? Because that's what we need to do to fight climate change. Worldwide, an estimated one million researchers are currently working on solutions for climate change. At Hasselt University, Talieh Rajabloo is mapping state-of-the-art climate research & technologies that can help energy-intensive industries such as the petrochemical and metal sectors reduce their CO2 emissions.

Plants capture CO2 and, through photosynthesis, convert it into green leaves. Over the past 30 years, the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere has thus led to a widespread increase in the number of green leaves around the world. But recently, there has been a shift: the increase in the number of green leaves is slowing down even though CO2 levels are still rising. Vaidehi Narsingh (Imec - UAntwerp) explains why she is determined to find out what is happening.

Did you ever enjoy a nicely packed fruit salad with an easy-peel lid? It's a beautiful display of packaging technology: the packaging is strong enough to protect your food, yet at the same time very easy for you to open once you want to dive in. Bram Bamps (UHasselt) explains how he optimizes heat-sealing packaging to keep our food safe and to ensure long shelf life.

What does a nutcracker have to do with tackling climate change? Well, Kristof Bal explains it to you in 150 seconds.

Too often, companies take too little account of the environmental impact of these inventions when developing new products. Gwenny Thomassen wants to change this: she developed a model to calculate both the cost price and the impact on the environment for products based on micro-algae.

Ever heard of pyrolysis? Then chances are you have a self-cleaning oven. But pyrolysis more than a fancy option in a modern oven. Willem Vercruysse uses this method to make fertilizers and water purification products from microalgae and ivy. 

Leila Paquay turns to funghi and bacteria to grow high-quality industrial hemp - not to be confused with drug type cannabis.

Yixing Sui is a kind of farmer. The 'crop' he is growing? Microalgae! These tiny living organisms might prove to be an important solution for the increasing food demands due to large population growth.

Imagine a world in which you can see and manipulate atoms of your own choice and in which you can rig the forces of nature to your liking. Danny Vanpoucke introduces you to the wonderful world of computational material research.