technological solutions with impact.

In January of 2023, Sync Biosystems moved into a new location in Leiden. The Demcon company is located in a BioPartner building, together with seventy other life sciences companies. The building houses a biological lab for producing cell cultures. The company is developing Organs-on-Chips and microphysiological systems, for which we aim to develop concrete applications. We believe that we can utilize high-tech engineering to improve the current biological tests by introducing precise control, (pharmaceutical) kinetics and continuous readout of biological in-vitro model systems. With the right technological tools, drug testing and disease modelling can be made easier and more reliable.

In late 2023, Demcon industrial systems worked together with Demcon focal and Demcon high-tech systems to develop a new machine for HyET Solar Netherlands B.V. This partnership has resulted in the development of a state-of-the-art machine for the production of HyET Solar’s Powerfoil, an extremely lightweight thin solar cell film. The machine is able to process Powerfoil with a width of up to 1,400 mm using an efficient roll-to-roll process. This machine is unique because of the various process steps it performs. First, the performance of the solar cells is improved; an essential factor in achieving maximum efficiency. We have also developed an innovative laser application that significantly improves the durability of the solar cells. The machine integrates a thorough performance evaluation and quality inspection phase. This comprehensive approach ensures that every Powerfoil produced offers top-tier performance.

Demcon suster is working for a client on a project in which organic waste is converted into bio-kerosene, a green fuel for the aviation sector. The use of bio-kerosene has the potential of considerably reducing CO2 emissions within the aviation sector. In the meantime, the client has decided to test the process developed by Demcon suster on a larger scale in a pilot plant. Demcon suster will be constructing and operating this pilot plant. The plant is too large to fit at Demcon at Kennispark Twente, which is a good reason to move to Technology Base, where the innovative Twente Airport is also located. If the pilot plant’s results are positive, a full-scale plant will be built at a still to be selected location.
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In the field of bio-tech, we are currently working on innovative technologies in support of cell and tissue therapy. This way we help create prospects for the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson, and for recovery after an infarction or cancer treatment. We are going to make use of stem cell and tissue technology for our work on organ-on-a-chip. This is related to the lab-on-a-chip, with which we have already acquired a lot of experience. The application of organ-on-a-chip technology for testing new medicines has the potential of significantly reducing the number of animal tests.
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The supply of medical isotopes, which generally are produced in old nuclear reactors, has run into problems in recent decades. As a result, cancer patients risk having to wait longer for diagnostics or therapy, while their health deteriorates. The SMART project, headed up by the Belgian Institute of Radio Elements (IRE) and under the technical guidance of ASML, develops a sustainable and reliable alternative on the basis of acceleration technology. Demcon makes a critical contribution to this: the design of a target that is able to withstand the extreme heat and radiation needed to produce these isotopes. At the beginning of 2022, a special team, for which Demcon supplied special knowledge and management, successfully demonstrated the feasibility of using liquid metal for cooling under these extreme conditions. The experiment established a world record for the highest continuous power density ever withstood by a human-made object. As such the project reached a crucial milestone toward achieving an operational SMART plant.
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Together with Carbyon, a start-up in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Demcon is working on a prototype to extract CO₂ out of the air. The project was initiated by Carbyon; the prototype was the result of a joint search for the best solutions. The prototype we built together with Carbyon essentially is nothing more than an oversized vacuum cleaner. The air enters the device on one side, the chemical reaction that combines the CO₂ with the absorbing material takes place in the center, after which the CO₂-free air is pushed out of the device again. Ultimately, entire fields with these machines must be installed all over the world, they must run on green energy and continuously remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. Now that the first prototype is ready, production of the first tens of these machines will be started up. This way the two companies together hope to be able to contribute to resolving the global climate problem. Read the full article on Innovation Origins.
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