Energy and Sustainability

A small company in Grootegast produces bicycle baskets and slippers from recycled rubber. That is remarkable because, until recently, it was impossible to recycle rubber. However, Francesco Picchioni, Professor of Chemical Technology at the University of Groningen, and Ton Broekhuis, now Emeritus Professor, discovered how this could be done.

Together with partners, Dr. Anatoli Mokhov has received 3 million euros to reduce gas emissions and avoid harmful flaring.

The University of Groningen is one of the leading European centres in enzyme engineering, the fine-tuning of enzymes for practical applications.

Hydrogen aircraft manufacturer Fokker Next Gen will conduct a feasibility study for establishing the Fokker Next Gen headquarters in the Northern Netherlands and a final assembly line at Groningen Airport Eelde.

Researchers at the University of Groningen already like to use the carbon dioxide produced by factories as a raw material for something else, such as cheese or kerosene. 

For research on making plastics circular, Professors Patrizio Raffa and Katja Loos together receive about 1.2 million euros from the National Growth Fund programme Circular Plastics NL.

On 14 June 2024, a team of RUG and Hanze students will compete in the RDW Self Driving Challenge. This year, the students are competing in a new category where they have to provide their own car that has to perform various, complex tasks.

Ben Feringa and colleagues argue for leadership and systemic change in laboratories.

University of Groningen chemists created an enzyme with boronic acid at its reactive centre. This approach can produce more selective reactions with boron, and allows the use of directed evolution to improve its catalytic power. The new-to-nature enzyme was presented in the journal Nature on 8 May.

Research group IREES receives NWO-KIC grant for research into sharing and repairing

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has awarded a Gravitation grant to ANION, the research programme that Professor Moniek Tromp of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials (Faculty of Science and Engineering, UG) is a partner in. ANION, Advanced Nano-electrochemistry Institute Of the Netherlands, will study the electrochemical processes that are important for large-scale energy transition. Tromp has been awarded 2.9 million euros for her research in ANION.

Elisabetta Chicca studied how instects navigate, which can come in handy when developing energy-effecient robots.