The technological development in the last 100 years has strongly increased the demands for energy and materials and this is increasingly affecting the natural materials cycles. Within the general subject of sustainable resources management our group is contributing to the technology development in the following fields:
- New materials for resource efficient technologies
- Controlling the fate of valuable and/or harmful materials
- Recycling, recovery and reuse of raw materials
In this context nanoparticles and nanoobjects are of particular interest.
Environmental sciences and research investigate and describe the natural processes and try to quantify the influence of human activities. From this it is possible to derive the aims for an environmentally sound course of action. Afterwards, implementation on the technological, political and social level is necessary. In coordination with the industrial sector, the authorities issue guidelines and adapt laws. In the past a series of environmental standards have been implemented. However, such improvements are based on state-of-the-art technologies, as they can only be realized under economically acceptable boundary conditions. Often a technological gap remains between the desirable goals and the practicable solutions. It is our mission to fill or at least to minimize such technological gaps.