Sterilization process failures may place patients at risk; therefore all sterilization procedures must be validated. For steam sterilization, chemical indicators form the first base of judgement for a successful sterilization. In a recent study, the standard chemical indicators are deemed not adequate. Additionally, current commercial indicators (Type 5 or 6) have a significant cost which means that in practice often less secure, lower-class indicators are applied. We developed chemical indicators that simultaneously track temperature and steam conditions over time. The production method relies on an ink which allows for high-throughput production of reliable type 5 or 6 steam sterilization indicators.

It is known that quantum computers will break all cryptography used on the Internet today. However, quantum computers also require us to change the way we determine if a cryptographic scheme is secure. This project will develop new ways to select secure cryptographic schemes for a world with quantum computers.

How can climate policy lead to behavioural change? ChangeAble develops new knowledge aimed at accelerating behavioural change, provides insight into which individual, social and contextual factors stimulate sustainable behaviour, and how and when policy can effectively leverage them. ChangeAble also provides insight into how tipping points can be reached by improved policy timing for more widespread and faster sustainable behavioural change. ChangeAble identifies, develops and tests interventions to promote changes in social conventions in five policy areas. In this way, ChangeAble contributes to more effective, efficient, acceptable and just climate policy by making better use of behavioural knowledge in policy.

Silicon Germanium (SiGe) semiconductors are mainstream for the transistors in your smartphone and PC. Unfortunately, SiGe has an indirect bandgap, thus preventing efficient light absorption, thus requiring a thick solar cell. In this project, we investigated hexagonal SiGe which, due to its direct bandgap, is capable to efficiently absorb light. The large light absorption allows for a thin film solar cell that is also capable to efficiently emit light, which is required for high efficiency solar cells. In this project, we investigated the light emission and we developed lenses to reduce the photon entropy loss.

Subsurface applications, such as energy storage, are crucial to combat climate change. Novel digital tools, referred to as ‘digital rock’ approaches can help to design these applications safely and sustainable. However, these rely on accurate digitalization methods. In this project, I aim for the development of digitalization workflows reflecting features at the smallest length scale in a representative manner. In large quantities, these small features may impact the characteristics of the entire reservoir and lead to unfavorable processes such as chemical and structural alteration. Their accurate determination is therefore essential to make ‘digital rock’ a practical reality.