In the space sector, weight is expensive. The heavier a product that needs to be transported into space is, the higher the cost. The current estimate is about 5,000 to 10,000 euros per kilogram, meaning that any loss of weight is financially advantageous for companies that send satellites into space.
In 2021, LIST entered into a new partnership with the Luxembourg company Gradel, in order to research and produce ultra-lightweight structures for the aviation and space industry using continuous carbon fibre reinforced polymers to create 3D structures. Parts will be produced for three major European satellite manufacturers: Thales Alenia Space (France), Airbus Defence and Space (France) and OHB (Germany).

Contact:  Henri Perrin

More information:  full press release

Within the framework of the Goodyear-LIST partnership, the largest public-private RDI partnership to date in Luxembourg, the CORUCOMP project aims to study the mechanisms taking place at the interface between the rubber matrix and the cable/fibre (which acts as a reinforcement agent for the tyre). In order to improve adhesion between the cords and the rubber, the cords are coated using the processing conditions and immersion solution developed by Goodyear. Until now, the changes to the cord-rubber interface that take place during the tyre vulcanisation process and subsequently during dynamic fatigue testing were not fully understood. Consequently, LIST researchers decided to study the link between the structural changes and the phenomenological properties resulting from thermal ageing and dynamic fatigue. Demonstrating interaction between the tyre cord and the rubber matrix is of paramount interest for the next generation of tyres.

Contact:  Frédéric Addiego

4D printing is the ability to print an object that, after a predetermined time, can change shape due to the effect of an external factor such as light, heat, humidity, vibration, etc. It has many applications, particularly in the medical field, as well as in the fields of construction, industry and fashion. Polymers are at the forefront of this breakthrough as these futuristic materials will inevitably be composites. It is specifically the union of polymers with other materials, sometimes natural, such as wood cellulose, that gives objects their ability to change shape or react to a stimulus.
LIST is working on shape-memory polymers in particular, a family of polymers that is compatible with 4D printing. These are materials that are already well-known and whose properties have been modified to give them a dynamic memory effect. Once stimulated (heat, electricity, light, etc.), these polymers are able to shift from one shape to another. In 2021, LIST also continued its work on integrated detection technologies in 3D-printed polymers as part of an industrial collaboration with the Guala Closures group.

Contact:  Muhammad Yasar Razzaq

In 2021, we welcomed our first student supported by the Fulbright Program for American students: Samantha Mannes, a student from the group of Prof. Brett Compton of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, whose specific expertise is in the field of 3D printing by direct-ink-writing. The Fulbright Program, founded in 1946, is one of the world's most famous and prestigious grants. We anticipate a significant increase in LIST's capabilities in the additive manufacture of polymers, and to consolidate a robust basis for further developments in this field. In addition, such agreements help to raise LIST's international standing and open the door to future collaboration with a leading group in this field.

Contact:  Daniel Schmidt

In order to detect, monitor and treat a patient's health problems, high-performance biological devices, based on a delicate optimisation of surface properties, are needed. These are, for example, biosensors or bioimplants. In view of the significant progress made over the past decade, surface properties must now be optimised on the level of the molecules themselves. The NANOSENS project, led by Sivashankar Krishnamoorthy and his team, aims to develop a sophisticated biosensing product enabling the provision of sensitive, quantitative and real-time measurements of the interaction of a biological environment consisting of biomolecules or biological cells with a nanostructured interface. The project should make it possible to improve the performance of medical technologies in the field of diagnosing, monitoring and treating diseases or patients' health problems.

Contact:  Sivashankar Krishnamoorthy

Multifunctional ferroic materials display many physical properties such as magnetism, ferroelasticity or ferroelectricity, for which they are considered to be 'smart' materials. In 2021, the University of Luxembourg and LIST established the first inter-institutional research group (IRG) in Luxembourg: Multifunctional Ferroic Materials. Through the studies that the IRG will conduct into these materials, scientists seek to understand these physical properties in order to better control them. The interactions, called coupling, between multiple properties constitute the basis of modern transducers, devices that convert energy from one form into another. The IRG is based on a common-interest research programme that focuses on lead-free ferroic materials. These are more environmentally-friendly than the current industrial lead-based materials, and on the effect of light on these multifunctional materials.

Contact:  Emmanuel Defay

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The ability to manufacture, manipulate and assemble materials on the nanoscale means that unprecedented surfaces and functional devices can be developed, utilising the specific properties of nanometric systems. As part of the CLASMARTS project, in summer 2021, LIST delivered a prototype enabling the deposition of thin nanostructured layers assembled in clusters on appropriate substrates according to source parameters. The CLASMARTS prototype will be dedicated to studying nanoporous films and their electrical transport properties. The project should pave the way for the development of highly miniaturised gas sensors, equipped with better sensitivity and response dynamics, and a lower operating temperature.

Contact:  Emanuele Barborini, Kevin Menguelti and Renaud Leturcq

Faced with the current global energy and environmental crisis, one of the avenues on which LIST is working is the development of a new class of materials for the clean and efficient production of hydrogen from porphyrins.Porphyrins are very common chemical compounds that enable life on Earth: they form the basis for photosynthesis in plants and respiration in humans. Our objective is to try to copy nature and develop porphyrin-based polymers and to thus enable other reactions, such as the production of clean hydrogen.
Researcher Giuseppe Bengasi won the NRF 2021 Awards for his PhD thesis. During his PhD, Giuseppe Bengasi and his research team invented a unique method enabling the synthesis and simultaneous deposition of porphyrin polymers as thin films. The process can be easily transposed onto an industrial scale and is suitable for coating substrates, such as plastic and paper. The method co-developed by Giuseppe Bengasi enables the the optical and electronic properties of porphyrin polymers to be engineered and paves the way for their use in flexible electronics and catalysis. One of the possible applications is the production of clean hydrogen. If this breakthrough is achieved, this technology could support a new economy, built not on fossil fuels but on hydrogen.

Contact:  Nicolas Boscher

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Nanoparticles can pose risks to human health, the environment and safety. It is therefore crucial to identify, study and limit these risks. In order to do this, we need to carry out an adequate physicochemical characterisation of these nanoparticles. This characterisation will be rendered much easier by the new npSCOPE instrument, which was developed by an international team of researchers coordinated by LIST. In 2021, after 4.5 years of work undertaken by nine partners from six European countries, the project was successfully completed. The npSCOPE instrument is now fully operational in LIST's laboratories and provides an unprecedented view of nanoparticles, opening up new possibilities in nanotoxicology.

Contact:  Tom Wirtz, Antje Biesemeier and Olivier De Castro

Within the framework of the DOMUS project, funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, LIST has successfully developed an atmospheric plasma-assisted deposition method for the rapid and low-temperature preparation of thin anti-fog films on windscreens. The method and formulation of the selected thin layer were applied to a windscreen mounted on a Toyota car and tested in a wind tunnel. Mission accomplished for LIST: the coated portion of the windscreen showed a significant reduction in fogging.

Contact:  Nicolas Boscher