Materials Science

After extensive analyses, Empa researchers found the cause of the concrete scandal in County Donegal, Ireland, where structural damage has been causing red faces and protests for years: Concrete walls of thousands of houses are riddled with cracks, necessitating expensive repairs or even demolition. For the longest time, an excessively high mica content in the concrete was thought to be the reason. Thanks to the Empa investigation, serious structural damage can be avoided in the future, as the real culprit – the mineral pyrrhotite – has now been identified.

Ukrainian building materials professor Viacheslav Troian left his homeland with his family because of the war. At ETH Zurich, he is researching the role that recycled concrete might play in future reconstruction.

Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a new transparent gold nanocoating that harnesses sunlight to heat the lenses of glasses, thereby preventing them from fogging in humid conditions. This coating could potentially also be applied to car windshields.

Using a new analytical method, Empa researchers have tracked viruses as they pass through face masks and compared their failure on the filter layers of different types of masks. The new method should now accelerate the development of surfaces that can kill viruses, the team writes in the journal Scientific Reports.

For the first time, ETH Zurich researchers have been able to make a superconducting component from graphene that is quantum coherent and sensitive to magnetic fields. This step opens up interesting prospects for fundamental research.