For the first project, dr.ir. Henk Huiniknk (Applied Physics) and his colleagues will be working with Dutch multinationals DSM, AkzoNobel, and Océ to develop new paint that doesn’t contain harmful solvents. The plan is to create polymer paints in which water acts as the plasticizer, so no organic solvents will be needed at all anymore.

The aim of dr.ir. Eugenio Cantatore (Electrical Engineering) is to develop cheap, plastic sensors with a large surface, which can be used as pressure sensor in preventing bedsores, and the ergonomic adjustment of office chairs, or as flexible X-ray detectors.

The second Electrical Engineering project is supervised by prof.dr.ir. Harm Dorren and revolves around the optical connection of Ethernet routers. An optical connection will allow PCB data transport to travel as light, instead of electronic signals. Doing so would lower the price of these routers tenfold.

And finally, prof.dr.ir. Anton Darhuber’s project (Applied Physics) will be searching for a way to prevent lines of printed electronic circuits to ‘smudge’.