Videos

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.

Making fries is something we Belgians are already very good at. But we can do even better, says Wout Vierbergen (ILVO - KU Leuven). He uses technology (Hyperspectral cameras! AI !) to detect black spots under the skin of a potato. In this way, he wants to help producers detect blistered potatoes so that they are left with only the finest ones to make our fries.

Did you know that the electricity generated today was traded yesterday by producers and retailers in the 'day-ahead' electricity market? ⚡️ 🤝 But what happens if we expect a windy day tomorrow 💨 but end up having much less wind, and thus less wind power, than anticipated? Lina Silva-Rodriguez explains how she uses math to help deal with this uncertainty.

Modern electrical devices, such as the smartphone or the electric cars, work with direct current (DC) while our power grid works with alternating current (AC). Therefore, you need e.g. a charger, which converts one type of current to the other. So shouldn't we switch to a DC electricity grid? In her PhD, Leonie Hallemans investigates how we can make such new DC grids as safe as our old AC grid.

Should you be worried if, for instance, your cholesterol level is above the normal value? Not necessarily. As Murih Pusparum (VITO - UHasselt) argues: test results are often compared to a standard range of normal values, while every person might have his or her own range depending on age, gender, and genetic or biological traits. That's why she is working on more personalised diagnosis.

Less than 10%... That's how much of all the plastic is recycled today. The rest is incinerated or ends up in landfills or -worse- in our oceans... The problem is that with current recycling methods, the quality of the plastic decreases with each recycling cycle. So is there no method to recycle plastic repeatedly without losing quality? There is: chemical recycling, aka the 'reincarnation' of plastic. Annelore Aerts (VITO) explains how that works.

To measure is to know. That is the credo of Michelle Laeremans (VITO). Together with a team of researchers, she monitors the health of 300 children in Mol, Dessel, and Retie (Belgium). They do this from pregnancy until the child reaches the age of 18. In this way, they map exposure to chemicals.

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. 

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. 

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. 

When removing a kidney tumor, a surgeon has just 20 minutes to do the job. During the operation, the surgeon has to cut off the blood supply to the kidney to avoid a true blood bath. But if the kidney is without blood for too long, too much of it will die off, causing the kidney to malfunction. Using mathematical models, Saar Vermijs aims to help surgeons in their race against the clock...

Today, we can treat cancer better than ever. Yet some cancer types remain very difficult to fight. Such is the case of glioblastoma, a highly aggressive brain cancer in which only 7 in 100 patients are still alive five years after diagnosis. Hoping to help glioblastoma get small, Joke Deschildre doctored a sophisticated strategy to attack cancer cells.