Obiettivo
The population dynamics of cyanobacteria in 3 reference lakes was described by a polyphasic approach. Thousands of DNA sequences from cyanobacterial strains and environmental samples were obtained from Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Italy and Spain. The toxicity of selected strains and samples was determined. A demo version of the microarray has been successfully tested with strains. For environmental analyses, the use of the DNA microarray involves a quite long learning process. A research version of the special software to calculate diversity indexes using molecular data (Community Sequence Analysis)is available. The database was designed and is being populated with data.
The objective of this project is to develop reliable and generally applicable d esign and test methods for electrochemical reactors of various natures and indu strial relevance. The obtained results will yield essential design tools (CIME- tools) and methods to many branches of the electrochemical industry: plating i ndustry (contacts, PCB's, Semiconductor IC manufacture, Smart cards, spot plati ng, strip and wire plating, ...) where it is a major problem to obtain uniforml y deposited layers on well defined places, etching industry (for micro-mechanic al parts in valves, watches, offset printing plates, ... ), anodising industry (for complex shapes in aviation and aeronautics, for high quality offset printi ng), electrochemically made micro-systems and the electrochemical waste recover y industry. In all of these electrochemical systems, mass transport phenomena o f charged species (due to diffusion, convection and migration by electrical for ces) are strongly coupled with the electrochemical reaction(s) at the electrode s. Also temperature effects, gas formation and evolution are to be considered. Based on fundamental research results obtained so far within the scope of the B rite-EuRam II and the Brite-EuRam III programmes, a new partnership with mainly industrial partners is essential in order to achieve the following objectives: - Step by step elaboration of available numerical methods for modelling of el ectrochemical systems with complex electrode processes in order to reach a desi gn code at industrial level. - Adaptation to and integration of these numerica l tools with commercially available software (CAD, flow solvers, visualisation) . - Quantification of several electrochemical systems resulting into reliable model parameters. - Application of this new design environment to highly deman ding industrial electrochemical cells in diverse fields: copper, chromium and g old plating, micromachining and fabrication of micro-magnetic components. - Co nstruction of various electrochemical industrial test reactors for these proces ses. - Experimental verification of flow, mass transport, current density, thi ckness, temperature and potential distributions in these reactors. - Compariso n of measured and designed objectives with evaluation of the limits of applicab ility of reactor design tools (including correlation of local properties of a d eposit (hardness, wear resistance, ...) to local quantities such as partial cur rents, potential and concentrations of interfering ions). As most fundamental a nd theoretical aspects are already available, the proposed project is considere d as pre-competitive Industrial Research. The partnership structure contains tw o major manufacturing industries, one software company, one university and two research centres. The university elaborates the developed numerical methods to solve the electrochemical models and will perform research on the electrode rea ction kinetics. One research centre provides the numerical knowledge on automat ed grid generation and time integration. The software company is a young starte r that will bring the new scientific software to a pre-competitive level needed to perform the designs. The two major manufacturers and the second research ce ntre will apply the design tools, build several industrially relevant reactors in order to evaluate the methodology by measuring their performance. In this wa y an evaluation of several design options becomes possible, hence providing the data needed for general application of integrated and optimal design combining know-how with numerical and statistical tools.
Campo scientifico
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftware
- natural scienceschemical scienceselectrochemistry
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsDNA
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaeronautical engineering
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsnumerical analysis