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With three speakers from different backgrounds, MinacNed gave a broad picture of the application of Thin Film / MEMS technology on April 20. This event is freely accessible to members of MinacNed and the aim is to exchange knowledge between experts and interested parties on a specific theme.

Thin Film/MEMS applications

From Philips, Rob van Schaijk has provided insight into new technology applications, including a look at the future of ultrasound imaging. Richard Norte, assistant professor at TU Delft, showed in his presentation how thin film mirrors are used and which interfaces there are with other nano application areas. Aaike van Vugt, CEO of VSParticle showed that his company focuses on the endless applications of nanoparticles and the collaboration they enter into with strategic partners. Moderator Frank van de Scheur led the session in which the speakers were challenged in discussion and by questions from the participants.

MinacNed has tackled a broad subject here, in which the three presentations have their own perspective, which gave the participants a brief impression of the application of Thin Film / MEMS. For those who have missed the session, it is possible to watch it again. Send an email to Aurélie Veltema via a.veltema@minacned.nl.

Read more about the event and the speakers’ abstracts.

Share your suggestion for a theme

Events are being planned for the months of May and June that will be announced shortly. If you have an idea for an event or if you have a question that you would like to tackle with experts, please send a message to MinacNed. The MinacNed member events are for and by members and we are happy to think along with you about speakers and the content of the event.

As part of an NWO-supported public-private collaboration, measurement equipment specialists Bronkhorst and Krohne teamed up with the technical universities of Delft and Twente to bring flow meters into the next generation. Their goal: to develop new and innovative meters that could provide real-time insight and analytics of flowing media, all without having to interrupt the flow.

Author: Collin Arocho, Bits&Chips
Lead picture: An ultrasonic flow meter installed on a customer setup. Credit: Bronkhorst

All types of industries are working to find ways to collect data and use analytics to get the most out of their products. According to the experts at Bronkhorst High-Tech and Krohne Altometer, the flow measurement market is inevitably trending in the same direction. “We want to be able to measure more than just the flow of media through a pipe. We want to measure the flow plus other parameters like density, viscosity and other meaningful quantities,” explains Joost Lötters, science officer at Bronkhorst.

In industry, Lötters has spent more than two decades focused on developing mass flow meters used in measuring and controlling the flow of liquid and gas for a variety of applications in laboratory, machinery, industrial and hazardous areas. Next to this “day job” at Bronkhorst, he serves as a part-time professor of microfluidic handling systems at the technical universities (TUs) in both Delft and Twente. Meaning that when it comes to knowledge of the measurement equipment market, he has a firm grasp on customer demands, as well as the technological innovations that are needed in the domain.

In 2014, Lötters caught wind of the partnership research incentive program through the Dutch Research Council (NWO), where the council would match funds, from 3-10 million euros, to support public-private collaboration projects. With inside knowledge of the research capabilities at the TUs, he reached out to his colleagues at Krohne to help guide the development process of next-generation flow meters in a program called “Flow+” – aimed at collecting and harnessing valuable data to give customers more insight and to bring down costs.

Researchers were invited to submit proposals of how their idea would fit in the program. “We looked at the proposals through the lens of NASA’s technology readiness levels,” describes André Boer, Krohne’s general manager. “Typically, universities work up to level 3 or 4, the stage of a proof-of-concept or functional model. For Flow+, we wanted something more advanced: we wanted to go to TRL 6, a fully functional and transportable model, with the ambition to take it all the way to level 9 – mission success. We wanted to use our expertise to help the researchers bridge the gap and to get first-hand experience from industry, but also to get our products to the market.”

Ultrasonic

In all, collaborators received a total of 18 submissions of project designs. Four proposals made the final cut. Now, a few years later, two of the projects have already matured to TRL 5. The first of them is an ultrasonic flow meter, stemming from TU Delft. By clamping on this small device to a pipe, the system uses soundwaves to penetrate and measure the flow inside, collecting valuable information such as the pipe diameter, wall thickness and speed of the liquid.

“To do this requires a very intelligent system that can calibrate itself automatically in any setting,” depicts Jankees Hogendoorn, general manager of Krohne’s New Technologies Group. “In this setup, the system utilizes a phased array of transducers – a group of sensors – to steer the acoustic beam to specific points and specific planes to gather information from an entire cross-section of the pipe. This allows us to collect valuable data and determine flow velocity from point to point without the need to cut into the pipe.” Meaning end-users not only receive more accurate analytical data than ever before but can monitor the health and stability of pipelines while realizing faster installation with minimal risk of leaks and a reduction of the total cost.

“I’ve been working at Krohne for 35 years, and we started developing ultrasonic flow meters really early on, as this was one of our biggest wishes,” expresses general manager Boer. “While the ideas were there, when it came to actually producing such a tool – forget it. The technology being developed by TU Delft just didn’t exist 20 or 30 years ago. That’s one reason this collaboration with the TUs has been such a success in our eyes. Through this program, we’ve been able to make use of the latest developments and realize next-gen technology.”

Flow+ PhD student working on the micro Coriolis flow sensor in the lab at the UT. Credit: Flow+

Coriolis

The second of the most advanced projects is the thermal noise limited Coriolis flow meter, a collaboration between the TUs of Delft and Twente. A Coriolis-type flow sensor consists of a vibrating tube through which a fluid is flowing. The moving mass of the fluid results in Coriolis forces acting on the vibrating tube that can be detected and used to determine how much substance is passing per second. However, when measuring gasses, it can be a little tricky because of their low density – implying a lot of pressure is needed to push the gas flow through the pipe.

“By creating an inline solution, we can collect all the relevant data and ensure that the high-throughput processes can be controlled and adjusted in real time, thus, limiting downtime of the system,” explains Lötters. “At Bronkhorst, we specialize in using the Coriolis principle for ultra-low liquid flow rates and we would like to improve this principle for measuring gas flows. But to do that, we need to dramatically improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the device, since the mass flows for gases are much lower than those for liquids due to their lower densities.”

To find a solution, Twente assumed the role of improving the sensitivity of the sensors to measure lower flows. Meanwhile, Delft took to upgrading the electronics used to decrease the noise level. After a few iterations of in-house development, this team is close to achieving a custom ASIC chip that will be integrated with the enhanced sensor from Twente en route to a market-viable product.

Printed circuit board with the micro Coriolis flow sensor chip mounted in the middle. Credit: Flow+

Plus

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so we still have to see how it all integrates, but I would call this cooperative effort a success,” says Lötters. “There are still some questions we’re addressing as we advance through the technology readiness levels. But our vision of measuring ‘flow plus something else’ is being realized. Now, we measure flow. Next, we’ll measure flow plus quantities such as density, viscosity and heat capacity. Finally, we’ll go towards recognition of gases, liquids, and determination of the composition of gas and liquid mixtures, for example by adding a machine-learning component. It’s a step-by-step process, but that’s the direction we’re going.”

In terms of future application of the Flow+ solutions, the market possibilities are quite diverse. “Applications of these systems range from medical solutions like measuring the composition of medicine mixtures of multi-infusion setups in hospitals and nutrition supply and waste drainage in organ-on-a-chip systems to energy content measurement in mixtures of fuel gases or research on catalysts and recipes for effectively extracting oil from wells in the oil and gas industry and many others,” illustrates Lötters. “All of these industries rely on the monitoring and measurement of both the flow in a pipeline and the content of the flowing media.”

Flow+

For the Flow+ project, measurement equipment specialists Bronkhorst High-Tech and Krohne Altometer teamed up with Delft University of Technology and the University of Twente to develop next-generation flow meters with enhanced data collection capabilities and increased sensitivity. The project is co-funded by Holland High Tech, Top Sector HTSM, and the Dutch Research Council (NWO), with a public-private partnership grant for research and innovation.

Article via Holland High Tech news

Events

De studievereniging Hooke voor Nanobiologie organiseert een symposium op 12 oktober 2021!

Hooke is de studievereniging voor de studie Nanobiologie aan de TU Delft en het Erasmus Medisch Centrum. Wij zijn een jonge en opkomende studie die zich focust op het veld waar biologie, natuurkunde en wiskunde samen komen. Hier streven wij om de mysteries van het leven op de kleinste schaal te ontdekken en te ontrafelen. Studenten hebben onder andere affiniteit met celbiologie, data analyse, programmeren, microscopie en nanotechnologie.

Zie fact sheet voor achtergrond van het symposium (pdf).

Sprekers

De symposium commissie van Hooke organiseert elk anderhalf jaar een symposium, de eerstvolgende editie zal plaatsvinden op 12 oktober 2021 en zal vooralsnog op locatie plaatsvinden. Deze keer zal het symposium 3 sprekers uit het vakgebied hebben:

– Jan van Hest is een van de 2020 spinozapremie winnaars, hij is een van de vooroplopers op het gebied van kunstmatige organellen en cellen. In zijn onderzoek ontwerpt en creëert hij nieuwe materialen en katalytische processen die kunstmatig gemaakte moleculen kan combineren met biologische componenten. Dit kan interessante biomedische toepassingen hebben zoals bijvoorbeeld het transport van medicijnen. Lees meer.

– Tom Shimizu is een groep leider van de onderzoeksgroep systeem biologie aan het instituut AMOLF. Hij doet onderzoek naar de processen en de moleculaire interactie van systemen die plaatsvinden als levende organismen reageren en interactie hebben met hun omgeving. Met als breed onderzoeksdoel om uit te vinden of natuurlijk geëvolueerde systemen op dezelfde manier begrepen kunnen worden als ingenieurs machines begrijpen. Lees meer.

– Rene Medema is de directeur wetenschapsbeleid bij het NKI en groepsleider van de onderzoeksgroep celdeling en kanker. Deze onderzoeksgroep doet onderzoek naar hoe cellen reageren op DNA schade en of/hoe dit ingezet kan worden bij de bestrijding van kanker. Lees meer.

Het symposium zelf zal elke spreker aan bod laten komen om wat over hun recente onderzoek te vertellen. Het thema van het symposium staat nog niet vast, maar het symposium zal zich globaal richten op de invloed van onderzoek, en het vakgebied nanobiologie in de huidige maatschappij.

De doelgroep van het symposium is studenten van de studie Nanobiologie maar ook van andere studies aan de faculteit Technische Natuurwetenschappen. Het symposium wordt normaal goed bezocht, met omstreeks 200 bezoekers. Hiertussen begeven zich ook veel PhD- en masterstudenten, evenals leden van het departement Bionanoscience binnen de TU Delft. Het symposium biedt een ideale gelegenheid voor bedrijven om in contact te komen met studenten en bijna afgestudeerden. Hier tegenover staat een financiële bijdrage die gebruikt zal worden voor de organisatie van het symposium. Organisaties hebben verschillende opties om met studenten in contact te komen. Bij eerdere edities maakten bedrijven van de mogelijkheid gebruik om hun bedrijf op een laagdrempelige manier te promoten of eventuele vacatures of stageplaatsen direct aan de man te brengen.

Contact

Ziet u dit als ook een goede kans voor u bedrijf? Dan kunt u ons benaderen voor een eventuele (online) afspraak om de mogelijkheden tot een samenwerking verder te bespreken. Wij zijn bereikbaar op symposium-hooke@tudelft.nl.

The MinacNed team invites you to MinacNed member event on April 20,  where we will discuss: Thin film/ MEMS technology. MinacNed has invited 2 excellent speakers who will present their work, followed by a Q&A discussion.

Thin film/ MEMS 
Online MinacNed member event
April 20, 2021
15:00-16:30 hrs
Registration free for MinacNed members

Invited speakers:
Rob van Schaijk, principal architecht Thin film/MEMS at Philips
Richard Norte, Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology & Co-Founder at Nenso Solutions

Moderator:
Frank van de Scheur, Head of MEMS & Micro Devices at Philips & Chair of MinacNed board

Program

More details about the content of the session and the theme will follow soon. Registration will become available 2 weeks before the event, free for MinacNed members.