Seminars

The southernmost continent holds much appeal for a variety of reasons. One century ago, visiting its icy shores posed a great challenge, while whales and seals were exploited as a natural resource. Today, Antarctica's fascinating but fragile ecosystem is embattled amidst climate change and the threat of its ores being extracted once the Antarctic Treaty may expire in 2041.

Renewable power sources like solar and wind energy are intermittent, and this is associated with a number of challenges regarding balancing demand and supply of electricity. Generally, considering a year’s period, there are timeframes with excess power and with a shortage. A complication is that different timescales play a role in the balancing challenge. Energy storage is a way to solve this.

> This seminar will be rescheduled in 2020

CO2 activation by plasma can be a viable route to reduce CO2 to CO, which can be used for further chemistry. The advantage of plasma activation is that it can use intermittent sustainably generated electrical power as energy source.

During the past couple of decades, optical frequency comb spectroscopy has matured from theoretical calculation and limited lab demonstration to a powerful tool suitable for different practical applications. These applications are quite diverse: from environmental monitoring, study of chemical reactions, combustion analysis and plasma study to pharmaceutical and medical diagnostics.