Videos

Did you know that every two minutes, enough ice melts on Earth to fill around 400 Olympic swimming pools with its meltwater? "The urgency is real – glaciers worldwide are disappearing at an alarming rate. In various corners of the globe, millions rely on these majestic glaciers for their drinking water and agricultural needs." Dive into the eye-opening short trip with glaciologist Lander Van Tricht as he takes you on a glacier expedition in Kyrgyzstan.

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.

We are facing a little green problem: the southern green stink bug, an insect from Ethiopia, is on the rise in our country. And that's bad news for our vegetable growers. Fortunately, Margot Geerinck is working on a solution. The protagonists: ichneumon wasps & fungi!

Do you own an electric car? Then you know how difficult it can be to find available charging spots. But what if we cover electric cars with solar panels so that they can charge themselves with the power of the sun? Well, that's not easy because conventional solar panels used on roofs can't be integrated into our cars. Electrical engineer Bin Luo is looking at new solar panels suitable for our cars.

Producing renewable, low-cost energy in a robust way remains a challenge. Jose Maria Cuevas (Imec - KU Leuven - Energyville) is looking at a new sort of solar cell that might help do the trick: the *take a breath* 3 Terminal Tandem Bifacial Solar Cell 😅 Say what ⁉️ Jose breaks it down and makes it crystal clear for you in this video. 👏

"Scientific information has to play a bigger role in the process of decision-making in policy." This is Ante Ivčević firm belief. In his research, he seeks to understand how policymakers make decisions and, more importantly, how we can get them to make these decisions based on scientific information. To investigate this, he researches science and policy regarding coastal areas in the Mediterranean basin.

Milk is a source of many delicacies, such as cheese and ice cream. Unfortunately, milk also has a smell to it... Cows produce ammonia and methane through their breath and manure. These harmful gases are mainly released when cows are in their stables. In his Ph.D., Kobe Coorevits is looking for a way to accurately and affordably monitor the emission of these gases in dairy barns.

What if we could give mining waste a second life? Mining produces a lot of waste, so-called mine tailings. These tailings still contain some leftover valuable metals, Nor Kamariah is researching new approaches to extract these remaining metals from the mining waste, while cleaning these tailings all at once. These clean tailings can then be recycled as construction materials. 

Did you know that the average lifespan of a wind turbine is 20 years? After that, unfortunately, wind turbines end up in landfills as they are built from thermosets, materials that can't be recycled (yet). "It's time to change that", says Marlies Thys. She is looking into making recyclable thermosets by using ... wood waste. 

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.

Have you ever heard of Boyan Slat? At the age of 18, he founded The Ocean Cleanup, an environmental enterprise developing and scaling technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. Environmental entrepreneurs such as Slat and their eco-innovations are the cornerstone of the transition to a more sustainable world. But how can we help them make a bigger impact? That's what Georgios Outsios is determined to find out.