2015-07-06 Showing new technologies
Insplorion’s customer Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) uses our measurement equipment to demonstrate some of their new innovations. For example surface-anchored metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs), a new class of highly porous materials, whose pore size and chemical properties can be exactly controlled and adjusted to the corresponding application. This material platform has huge application potential in various areas of engineering and science, such as in sensor technology, catalysis, solar cell technology, as well as in the pharmaceutical and biological sectors. It's an exciting new technology!
(See picture in enclosed PDF)
The picture (Photo: H. Gliemann, KIT) shows KIT:s stand at this year's Hannover Messe where they had Insplorion’s equipment running. Dr. Hartmut Gliemann, Peter Lindemann and Prof. Christof Wöll from the Institute of Functional Interfaces at KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany, together with Thomas Spangenberger at Zeitlos-Modelle, Karlsruhe, Germany, had developed a “push the button” model. Here magnet valves switch between nitrogen and an ethanol-saturated nitrogen gas, which are sequentially flowing through the measure cell. The SURMOF-coated substrates showed the loading and unloading of the pores with ethanol. The same sensor could be used for five days! The ball-model on the left side of the picture is a model of the gold-island-coated substrate and the SURMOF structure. The small bright balls symbolize the Ethanol molecules, which diffuse into the SURMOF-pores.
Dr. Gliemann explains: “The nice thing is that as soon as a visitor pushes the button, the measure cell is flooded with pure nitrogen to reset the system. Then the valve switch to the ethanol-saturated N2 and the EtOH bottle is illuminated in blue and the LEDs symbolizing the EtOH “moves” from the outside to the inside of the structure to demonstrate what happens at that moment on the molecular level. All these steps were synchronized and happened automatically. It was really fun! And it was a real success!"