The recently launched KODOS project (“Konfektionierter Dünnglas-Verbund für optoelektronische Systeme”, Thin Glass Composites for Optoelectronic Systems), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is designed to transform thin glass into finished products along the entire value chain. The companies EMDE development of light, Volkswagen and Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau, which focus on application development, have joined forces with the technology suppliers tesa, VON ARDENNE, Flabeg, 4JET microtech, SURAGUS, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP (Dresden, Germany).
Ultra-thin glass – one human hair thick – is ideally suited as a material for mass production of optical components and parts as well as for encapsulating optical and optoelectronic systems. Its production requires a completely coordinated process chain – from manufacture to functionalisation. This is the goal to be accomplished by 2022 in the GLASS4FLEX joint research project.
Standards of food safety and food quality have never been higher in Germany and throughout the European Union. This is especially true in the dairy industry. Yet despite such high standards, traces of impurities, pesticides and antibiotics can find their way into milk, with sometimes serious consequences for consumer health. In the EU-funded project MOLOKO, Fraunhofer researchers have teamed up with partners to develop a new optoplasmonic sensor designed to provide fast, on-site analysis of safety and quality parameters for milk. This early-warning system is expected to bring the industry substantial savings in time and money as well as a drastic reduction in wasted product, thereby helping to improve performance along the entire supply chain.
