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How nanoparticles for fuel cell applications continuously change
Proton exchange membrane fuel cells use hydrogen as a fuel and are one possible alternative to internal combustion engines that run on fossil fuels. The wider deployment of fuel cells, and thus the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is hampered by their cost. They require the expensive and scarce metal platinum to operate efficiently.
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Interreg Project T4RAIL IT-SI for More Efficient Information Transfer in Railway Transport
Europe is striving to shift as much freight as possible from overcrowded roads to rail transport. Efficient information transfer among stakeholders is key to achieving this goal, which is the central focus of the T4RAIL IT-SI project. The project involves the Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transport at the University of Ljubljana.
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Was Australia Wetter Than Slovenia?
The world-renowned tall limestone pinnacles in the Pinnacle Desert, located in Australia’s Nambung National Park, are approximately 100,000 years old. At that time, Australia was even wetter than Slovenia. This surprising finding was discovered by scientists using an innovative method, including Prof. Dr. Andrej Šmuc and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aleš Šoster from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering at the University of Ljubljana, and Dr. Matej Lipar and Dr. Mateja Ferk from the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU).
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A completely new concept for harnessing waste heat and solar energy
Researchers from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana, led by Assistant Professor Dr. Primož Poredoš, in collaboration with researchers from the ITEWA Innovation Team at Shanghai University, have developed a new concept for utilizing ultra-low temperature (waste) heat by simultaneously introducing solar energy and low-temperature heat into the system. They are the first in the world to present an entirely new concept for producing distilled water from saline, untreated water using thermally driven membrane distillation (MD).
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Biotechnical Faculty UL Secures up to 2.5 Million in European Funding for the ERA Chair - Foodomics Project
The Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana (UL BF) has successfully obtained 2.5 million euros through the Horizon Europe research and innovation program for the ERA Chair project titled "Chair of Metabolomics in Food and Nutrition (Foodomics)." This project will establish a new interdisciplinary Center for Metabolomics.
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Wild animals are a good indicator of environmental pollution
Wild animals are a good indicator of environmental pollution that affects the entire ecosystem. Therefore, the Veterinary Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, in collaboration with the Faculty of Economics and the Biotechnical Faculty, has decided to conduct a study to examine the amount of toxicants in the tissues of certain animal species in Slovenia.
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Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Successful in MSCA Doctoral Networks Call
The University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, has been successful in the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks call with the project UPCYCLE – Dissemination of Advanced Conversion Routes for Hard-to-Recycle Biogenic Waste. As part of the project, 15 doctoral candidates will be trained, three of whom will be based in Slovenia. The project is coordinated by Politecnico di Milano, with UL FS participating as a partner.
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Artificial intelligence for predicting process condition variations in laser powder bed fusion of metals
Assistant professor Dominik Kozjek, a researcher in the Laboratory for Mechatronics, Production systems, and Automation (LAMPA) at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UL, in cooperation with researchers from Northwestern University (Illinois, United States), the United States Army Research Laboratory, and the company DMG MORI Advanced Solutions, developed a new method of predicting meltpool temperature variations in the laser-powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M) process.
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Restoration of wetland and meadow ecosystems
Meadow and wetland ecosystems fulfil various functions that are essential for the life of different plant and animal species and for human activities. These ecosystems are highly efficient carbon sinks and habitats for animal and plant species of European importance in Natura 2000. They are rapidly being lost due to climate change (drought, evaporation, erosion, cracking, sward damage, etc.) and land use change, as well as the introduction of invasive alien plant and animal species. How can wetlands and meadow ecosystems be better managed to help mitigate the climate crisis and conserve biodiversity?
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LANDLABS - Landscape Laboratories: Design Strategies for Sustainable and Beautiful Landscapes of the Anthropocene
How can landfills, mining areas or transportation infrastructure corridors that are part of our urban landscape be transformed into sustainable and beautiful places? How can we create a coexistence between humans, animals, plants, water, soil and technical elements in these areas? These are the questions addressed by LANDLABS, a doctoral research project in the field of landscape planning and design, which was successfully funded in April 2024 as part of the call for Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks.
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Harnessing the low temperatures of space to cool buildings and equipment in remote locations in an environmentally friendly way
Doc. dr. Professor Primož Poredoš, in collaboration with colleagues from the Laboratory for Environmental Technologies in Buildings at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UL, and researchers from the ITEWA innovation team at Shanghai University, has developed a concentrator based on the AsymSkyCool method that enables cooling of buildings and appliances without the use of electricity. The concentrator takes advantage of the 'cold of space' – the extremely low temperatures of deep space, which can be as low as minus 15°C compared to the surrounding environment – and uses a special method to concentrate it and direct it towards a heat source. Using space as a cooling source enables environmentally friendly, efficient and sustainable cooling of devices that consume large amounts of electricity, such as LED lights, batteries and electric motors.
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BF UL recipient of the MSCA Doctoral Network Project
The Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana is the recipient of the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network Project. The Department of Agronomy at BF UL will coordinate the project titled ViroiDoc - Advanced Research on Viroid Pathogenesis and Control for Sustainable Agriculture, worth 2.5 million euros, over the next four years. The project is led by Prof. Nataša Štajner, Asist. Prof. Sabina Berne and Prof. Jernej Jakše.
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Food for thought: discussing the menu of the future with scientists
The University of Ljubljana invites you to the Food for thought Festival, a series of interdisciplinary events organised by the University in collaboration with the "Jožef Stefan" Institute and the Institute of Chemistry. The festival menu has a sustainable theme and brings together researchers, UL alumni and students around a common table to discuss current societal issues and the challenges of creating sustainable food systems. The events, which will take place between 23 and 25 April, are free of charge,intended for the broader public and (most of them) can also be attended online.
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Smart Agro Grape – Digital platform for vineyard managers
How can you set up smart vineyards that would be sustainably oriented and that would only use the essential quantities of sprays and fertilisers? This challenge has been taken up by the European project Smart Agro Grape, in which the lead partner is the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. The project will involve the development of a digital platform and a mobile phone app, which will allow vineyard managers to access / get notifications and thereby to respond early to situations that could lead to the onset of various diseases in the vineyard, and will enable more commercially successful operation.
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Irregularities in hydrogen fuel cell catalysts
The increasingly evident consequences of climate change are a major motivation for the development of low-carbon technologies, among which fuel cells, using hydrogen as fuel, hold great promise. One of the obstacles to the wider commercialization of the technology is the use of expensive and rare platinum in catalysts, which is why effort goes into trying to reduce the amount of platinum used while preserving the relevant properties of these materials. For the oxygen reduction reaction, one of the reactions in a fuel cell, we use catalysts with alloyed nanoparticles containing platinum and cheaper transition metals. Since certain defects in the nanoparticle structure can occur during the preparation of the catalyst, the effects of all aspects of the structure on the performance in the fuel cell need to be studied in detail.
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Using cavitation to break down invisible water pollutants
Researchers from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the National Institute of Chemistry conducted an experimental study in which they achieved the degradation of a water-soluble synthetic polymer - poly(vinyl alcohol) PVOH - by acoustic and hydrodynamic cavitation. The use of PVOH is rapidly increasing, and as a result, increasing amounts of this material are being released into the environment. PVOH is widely used in the textile and paper industries, as well as in households, for example in the form of detergent pods. It is estimated that thousands of tons of it are washed into the aquatic ecosystem every year.
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The innovative solutions for the use of flexibility in the power system
The increasing share of renewable distributed energy resources (DERs) in the power system is becoming a key for the decarbonization of the European energy sector and thus achieving the EU's energy and climate change policy objectives. The variability and uncertainty of the DERs generation present significant risks and challenges related to the stability and reliability of the entire interconnected European power system, as well as national and even small local networks while opening new opportunities for the development of new energy concepts and solutions.
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A controlled experiment tests the effectiveness of knowledge transfer in Slovenian agriculture for the first time
With agriculture accounting for around 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, and with cattle farming contributing the largest share, there is an urgent need to increase the uptake of low-emission farming practices in this sector. Education and good advisory support play an important role in promoting such changes, enabling farmers to acquire new knowledge and change their attitudes towards this issue.
