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Modern technologies for green electronics like photovoltaic systems and solidstate lighting require increasing amounts of scarce metals. Global demand and price of these materials is expected to increase significantly the coming decades. If not controlled well some of these resources may be exhausted within 20-30 years. Europe is considered to be a fertile ground for establishing an advanced recycling infrastructure for key metals from E-waste as (1) it is an important and growing market for Photovoltaics (PV), Solid State Lighting (SSL) and electronics, (2) there is a recognized need to expand manufacturing technology to provide the high added value required to remain globally competitive, (3) it will contribute to becoming less dependent for raw material supply, and (4) aligns well with the positive societal attitudes towards recycling and support for the necessary waste collection systems. Objectives of the RECLAIM project are to find technological solutions for disconnection, sorting, concentration and purification of indium, gallium and rare-earth metals (yttrium, europium) that relieve current bottlenecks and demonstrate their application potential by means of pilot implementations in an industrial setting.

The influence of errors on the irradiation process for laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) was studied theoretically with energy density simulations. Therefore an irradiation model has been extended by a selection of technical variations. The influence of errors has been found in a deviation from optimal conditions, by a shift or spread of accumulated fluence and a variation of local fluence, related to variations of the peak fluence and relative pulse intersection. The analysis of the irradiation process by energy density simulations, gives the possibility to perform realistic irradiation simulations and derive optimization strategies for the determination of irradiation parameters. This analysis is required for the application of LIPSS for surface functionalization. © 2013 The Authors.

The current work investigated the impact of surface condition on the metal dusting behavior of chromia forming alloys. Five commercial alloys were included in the study, wrought 800H, 353MA, and cast G4859, G4852 Micro, and ET45 Micro, these alloys have a chromium and nickel content in the range of 20-35 wt% and 32-45 wt%, respectively. The wrought alloys were tested in a pickled state and the cast alloys with a machined surface, all the alloys were tested using a laboratory ground surface condition for comparison. The exposures were performed using a gas with a composition of 44 vol% CO, 52 vol% H2, 2 vol% CO2, and 2 vol% H2O at a temperature of 600 °C and a pressure of 5.5 bar. The samples were periodically characterized by measuring the mass loss, pit density, pit size, and pit depth. The results show that the pickled surfaces were sensitive toward metal dusting attack while the machined and the ground surfaces had better resistance. This shows that the surface pre-treatment plays a crucial role. Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

CityMobil was an integrated project in the Sixth Framework Program of the European Union. The objective of the project was to achieve more effective organization of urban transport for more rational use of motorized traffic with less congestion and pollution, safer driving, a higher quality of living, and enhanced integration with spatial development. This objective was reached by developing integrated traffic solutions: advanced concepts for innovative autonomous and automated road vehicles for passengers and goods embedded in an advanced spatial setting. The project was split into two parts: (a) research and development and (b) demonstration. The primary aim of the research and development part was to identify, address, and, where possible, eliminate barriers that still blocked the large-scale implementation of automated transport systems in urban traffic. The heart of the demonstration part consisted of three large-scale implementations of automated transport systems in urban areas and a number of smaller showcases and demonstrations. CityMobil was a 5-year project that started in May 2006 and ended in December 2011. The project results were presented at a final conference in Brussels, Belgium. This paper provides an update of a paper presented in 2009 and includes an overview of the final CityMobil results. The detailed results are available on the CityMobil website: www.citymobil-project.eu.

Due to its flexibility and ease of patterning, ink jet printing has become a popular technique for the noncontact deposition of liquids, solutions, and melts on a variety of substrates at lateral resolutions down to 10 μm. This article presents a study of ink jet printing of homogeneous layers of Orgacon™ (Agfa-Gevaert, Belgium), a water-based dispersion of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly (styrenesulfonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS). The printed PEDOT:PSS layer can be used as a transparent electrode in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Fundamental aspects of the interaction between the ink jet ink and the substrate and the resulting homogeneity of the active layer in relation to OLED device performance are investigated. The optimized PEDOT:PSS ink formulation is shown to improve layer homogeneity, resulting in a uniform light output and device efficiency. Ink jet printing is shown to be capable of fabricating 25×25 mm OLED devices that have equivalent efficiency and light uniformity to the ones produced by spin coating.

International audience; The European Union H2020 EFESTO project is coordinated by DEIMOS Space with the end goals of improving the TRL of Inflatable Heat Shields for re-entry vehicles (from 3 to 4/5) and paving the way towards further improvements (TRL 6 with a future In-Orbit Demonstrator). This paper presents the project objectives and provides with a general overview of the activities ongoing and planned for the next three years, promoting its position in the frame of a European re-entry technology roadmap.