Newsletter of the Fraunhofer IST

More than 100 million people in Southern Africa still have no access to clean water. Especially in rural areas, many streams, lakes or other natural sources are heavily polluted. Together with nine other European and African partners, the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST has developed a decentralized water-purification system in order to change this.

How can you make water for domestic use germ-free and drinkable in remote regions of Africa – in a sustainable and affordable way? This is what a FUTURIS report by the TV channel euronews is about. The film documents how the pilot project ”SafeWaterAfrica” manages to bring clean water to remote places in Africa.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has founded a hydrogen network - which now also includes the Fraunhofer IST. The aim of the network is developing hydrogen technologies to market maturity within a short period of time and therefore providing a contribution towards the energy revolution.

During the production of cutting tools, state of the surface and edge-layer arise which require the most efficient cleaning procedure possible in order to allow the subsequent coating. The Fraunhofer IST was involved in the development and evaluation of an alternative cleaning process chain.

In order to better comprehend the behavior of dust particles in coating processes, the Fraunhofer IST had developed a program which is capable of simulating the movement and charging of dust particles, resulting in the simulation software PALADIN – Plasma Lattice Dust Integrator.

The Fraunhofer IST has long been successfully developing ALD processes with which such coatings can be produced. In a joint project the Fraunhofer IST has, amongst other things, utilized atomic layer deposition to selectively functionalize battery materials.