NWO and NXTGEN Hightech grant awarded for the development of a new liquid sensor

NWO and NXTGEN Hightech are awarding more than €4 million in funding for research on high-tech equipment. The selected projects for this funding come from the University of Twente (UT), Erasmus MC, and the Open University. Part of the funding will go to the UT project VISCUS: viscosity ultrasound sensors.

Flow sensors used to measure the velocity of liquids are applied in many industrial setups where the dosing of a liquid must be controlled, such as in food processing, the production of medicines, microchips, and solar panels. In the UT project led by Jurriaan Schmitz, a flow sensor is being developed that operates using ultrasound, allowing other properties of the liquid to be determined as well, in particular its viscosity. This makes it possible to automatically monitor the quality of the liquid and to intervene quickly when the composition of the liquid changes unexpectedly. The project is carried out in collaboration with researchers from TU Delft and two companies based in the Netherlands that develop and produce flow sensors: Bronkhorst High-Tech B.V. and KROHNE.

The grants fall within the second call for proposals of the NXTGEN Hightech research program. In this call, NWO and NXTGEN Hightech requested research proposals focused on developing new knowledge related to future-proof high-tech equipment. Although the Netherlands is one of the global leaders in this field, continued investment in new developments remains necessary to maintain and strengthen this position.