3D-printed open-source robot offers accessible solution for materials synthesis

Practical, cost-effective solution for accelerating innovation in materials science

14-Apr-2025 - FLUID, an open-source, 3D-printed robot, offers an affordable and customizable solution for automated material synthesis, making advanced research accessible to more scientists. A team of researchers led by Professor Keisuke Takahashi at the Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, have created ...

Not humans or robots, but humans and robots

A perspective for AI-driven self-controlled laboratories of the future

12-Feb-2025 - The urgent need for a transition to sustainable energy sources demands a significant acceleration of traditional research and development cycles. Self-driving labs (SDLs), powered by artificial intelligence (AI), could play a pivotal role in this transformation. In a perspective paper in the ...

New ion speed record holds potential for faster battery charging, biosensing

20-Nov-2024 - A speed record has been broken using nanoscience, which could lead to a host of new advances, including improved battery charging, biosensing, soft robotics and neuromorphic computing. Scientists at Washington State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered a way to ...

AI-driven mobile robots team up to tackle chemical synthesis

Chemical research in turbo mode

08-Nov-2024 - Researchers at the University of Liverpool have developed AI-driven mobile robots that can carry out chemical synthesis research with axtraordinairy efficiency. In a study publishingin the journal Nature, researchers show how mobile robots that use AI logic to make decisions were able to perform ...

Synthetic mini-motor with enormous power developed: Hope for use in the organism

Bacteria as a role model: Conversion of chemical energy into rotational energy at the supramolecular level for the first time

19-Sep-2024 - Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed an artificial motor at the supramolecular level that can develop impressive power. This wind-up motor is a tiny ribbon made of special molecules. When energy is applied, this ribbon aligns itself, moves like a small fin and ...

Presidential Award goes to energy start-up

Top-class competition: Planet A Foods and RobCo

02-Jul-2024 - For the development of its high-efficiency power plant, the start-up Reverion has received the TUM Presidential Entrepreneurship Award. In addition to generating electric power with biogas, the plant can also produce hydrogen from surplus energy. Finalists for the award included Planet A Foods, ...

Accelerating battery research with robots

Smart, autonomous and chemistry-agnostic: The world urgently needs new types of energy storage

15-Sep-2023 - Empa researchers want to accelerate the development of urgently needed new energy storage systems with the help of the Aurora battery robot. The Aurora project is part of the European research initiative Battery2030+, which was recently awarded over 150 million euros in funding by the EU. In ...

Muscles for soft robots inspired by nature

Materials researchers significantly improve the performance of hydrogel actuators

08-Sep-2023 - Robots made of metal and other solid materials are already widely used in industry. But they are too rigid and cumbersome for fine-motor activities and interaction with people, such as in nursing or medicine. Intensive research is therefore already being carried out into robots made of soft ...

A totally edible and rechargeable battery made from food

It may be applied in health diagnostics, food quality monitoring and edible soft robotics

17-Apr-2023 - A team of researchers at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) has created a totally edible and rechargeable battery, starting from materials that are normally consumed as part of our daily diet. The proof-of-concept battery cell has been described in a paper, ...

225 million euros for start-ups of the Max Planck Society

2022 brought record investment sums for research-based start-ups managed by Max Planck Innovation

21-Mar-2023 - A successful business year for Max Planck Innovation includes increasing investment sums for the start-ups managed. Especially life sciences start-ups with a high degree of maturity provided a record sum of 225 million euros. Companies in the Max Planck Innovation investment portfolio raised over ...