Two UT scientists have been awarded Vidi funding by the Dutch Research Council for Scientific Research (NWO). Dr Jimmy Faria Albanese, associate professor in the Catalytic Processes and Materials (CPM) department of the TNW faculty, is researching new catalytic materials and processes that can 'upcycle' plastics into value-added chemicals. Dr-Ing Roelof Rietbroek, assistant professor in the Water Resources (WRS) department of the ITC faculty, uses satellite observations to see how atmospheric transport of moisture and river discharge are changing the water cycle and sea level. With this contribution of 800,000 euros, they can develop their own innovative line of research and set up a research group in the coming five years.

The victory photo of Solar Team Twente, which won the Solar Challenge in Morocco last October, is prominently displayed on the cover of the University of Twente's annual report this year. The victory of the solar car of the Twente student team is one of the nice highlights of the university in the year 2021, a year that was largely marked by COVID-19. The annual report was published today.

A technical bachelor programme where design and technology come together and where a vwo student is also admissible without a technical profile. As of academic year 2023-2024, this is possible at the VU Amsterdam. This week, the technical bachelor programme Creative Technology is officially approved by the Committee for Marco-efficiency in Higher Education and will also be offered at VU Amsterdam.

Photoelectrochemical cells are promising for the conversion of sunlight into fuel, for example, water into hydrogen, or CO2 into organic molecules. To realize this, a higher efficiency of the photocathode, often based on NiO, is needed. An important and unknown question is the role of water molecules adsorbed on the NiO surface. Kaijian Zhu performs research on the effects of this adsorption.