Expansion of cork through microwave radiation
Blumotion, a damper system that facilitates the smooth closing of furniture doors, drawers and wall cabinets.
The latest in a series of inventions enabling Spanish railroad company Patentes Talgo to use a unique ‘independent guided' wheel design rather than a standard axle on their high-speed passenger trains. This design makes the trains some of the most comfortable and safe in the industry.
In the 1990s an Australian research team made up of John O’Sullivan, Terence Percival, Graham Daniels, Diethelm Ostry and John Deane created a technology for the high-speed wireless delivery of data between devices like computers and mobile phones over a network. Their invention made the wireless LAN as fast and powerful as the cabled solutions of the time, and is the basis for the wireless networking technology (Wi-Fi) now used in billions of devices worldwide. O'Sullivan and his team thus ushered in the age of high-speed, always-on wireless connectivity we enjoy today.
Led by Federico Capasso and Jérôme Faist at Bell Laboratories in the USA (Prof. Faist is currently with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich), a team of physicists invented so-called Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs), which are able to reach areas of the electromagnetic spectrum previously untouched by laser light. Today, the ability of QCLs to produce wide bandwidths, high brightness, and high power very efficiently from a compact source has resulted in a wide array of unique products, from hand-held sensors for the detection of explosives and other toxic chemicals to more powerful radar systems.
The inventions of American scientist Stanford Ovshinsky have arguably put the "green" into auto technology, paving the way for the development of the world's first electric car and the popular hybrids of today. The NiMH battery he invented offers a clean-energy storage solution with record durability and double to triple the capacity of nickel-cadmium batteries of the same size. Besides being at the heart of the eco-tech revolution, this battery is also widely used in consumer electronics.
Looking for a solution to a practical problem, Italian entrepreneur Mario Moretti Polegato set out to create the perfect breathable shoe which would let air in but keep water out. His invention, a waterproof, breathable sole for footgear, with a membrane of vapour-permeable and waterproof material, has revolutionised the footwear industry. And the company he founded in 1995, GEOX, is now one of the largest shoe manufacturers in the world.
Professor Josef Bille of the University of Heidelberg in Germany has filed almost 100 patents in the field of ophthalmology and is a pioneer in the area of laser eye correction. He developed a method for mapping irregularities in the cornea with unprecedented precision and fine-tuning the lasers to repair them. This ground-breaking invention, and its continuous improvement, has corrected near-sightedness, far-sightedness, and astigmatism in millions of patients worldwide.
Austrian inventor and entrepreneur Josef Theurer is a pioneer in the field of railway construction. He has more than 500 inventions to his name, and the company he established with a partner in 1953, Plasser & Theurer, is now the world market leader for railway track-maintenance machines. Among his countless inventions is an innovative track-borne machine for installing overhead lines, patented in 1988, which broke new ground and made railway construction considerably quicker and easier.
Dutch scientists Mark van Loosdrecht, Merle Krista de Kreuk and Joseph Heijnen invented a cutting-edge sewage purification system which uses aerobic granular biomass. Bridging biotechnology and civil engineering, their solution drastically improves the quality of waste-water going back into the water cycle, without relying on extra chemicals. It can also make water treatment much more efficient and cost-effective.
