Videos

Corrosion of metal structures can lead to disasters, such as the collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genua in 2018. In order to help prevent such tragedies engineer Negin Madelat is working on a method for the early detection of corrosion underneath a thick layer of coating.

To make the production of plastics and other chemical processes less energy-intensive and waste-producing, Max Bols turns to nature. Enzymes, the catalysts of living cells, hold the key to improve chemical processes, as he explains in this video. 

Did you know that the water we drink and the air we breathe contain small fractions of metals? If the doses are low, this is not a problem, but once they're too high, this becomes harmful to our health. That's why Reinhart Van Poucke wants to capture metal particles from the air, water, and soil so that they don't end up in our food chain.

Products with an eco-label are often more expensive than regular products. Bio-engineer Sven Dierickx is determined to change this: he uses yeast from bumblebee honey to make environmentally friendly ánd low-cost detergent 🐝🍽🧽

In order to provide the growing world population with sufficient protein, Reindert Devlamynck (University of Ghent) focuses on duckweed. In addition to ducks, he also wants people to eat this tasty little plant and is setting a good example for himself 🍽

What if we could make plastic out of... Wood waste? This is already possible today, but unfortunately the technology to make such bioplastics is not yet fully developed. Tim Croes wants to help change that.

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.

Cinnamon, one of the main ingredients of Belgium's beloved speculaas 😋, is almost exclusively harvested by farmers in Kerinci, a small region in Indonesia. One would think these farmers are rich, but are they really? Sidi Rana Menggala has the answer.

"If we think in circles, we start producing and consuming differently. In his research, Nicholas Vijverman (Vlerick Business School - University of Ghent) studies how we can engage everyone - from government, producer to consumer - in the circular economy. ♻️

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.

Recycling plastic is kind of like eating spaghetti. With this analogy Christian Taplan introduces us into the world of plastic recycling. Christian is working on a new and very promising type of recyclable plastic materials, called 'vitrimers'.

A question: if a pig farmer has 10.000 pigs and you know that 1 pig produces 4.5kg of manure each day, how much manure does the farmer have to deal with on a yearly basis? That's right: a sh*tload of manure. A good thing Natalia Donoso is researching how pig farmers can process this manure in a sustainable way.