Technologies

Bivalve mollusc shells are made mainly of CaCO₃ (ca 95%), with a small fraction of organic material. If from these shells this mineral is retrieved, they could become a renewable and sustainable “mine” of a “blue” CaCO₃. Bivalve mollusc shells, also after the removal of the animal flesh, maintain a certain quantity of organic substances, part in the muscle and part in the shell.

The proposed technology consists of a portable device for monitoring the freshness of fish, based on its smell. The device is based on a gas sensor and pattern recognition software to correlate the sensor signal to the freshness of the food. The technology is designed for its integration into domestic or industrial refrigerators.

Nowadays, to properly design and develop advanced materials capable to preserve for long times their performance under aggressive environments such as power generation plants, renewables, nuclear reactors and electronics of new generation, transport on ground and on space, aeronautics, catalysis, biomedical implants, the optimization of metallurgical processes involved is crucial.

The technology has been developed over the past 25 years, implementing new innovative components during time. The methodology provides a set of 2D acoustic images in different frequency intervals, for revealing the structural damage (detachments, delaminations, structural weakening) in multi-layer structures and artworks (mural paintings, frescoes, ceramic panels, panel paintings). Recently, interesting results have been obtained in studies of the water related deterioration effects on antique masonry structures.

Digital Eye is an innovative, rapid and high-precision intelligent computer vision system for the non-destructive and contactless evaluation of quality and shelf-life of whole or fresh-cut fruit and vegetables. It integrates advanced vision and artificial intelligence technologies to estimate parameters useful to evaluate the quality of fruit and vegetables, during both the harvesting phase and the cold chain.

The constant demand for more powerful and energy-efficient electronic devices than existing ones is challenging scientists and companies to develop innovative solutions that can address such primary technological needs. Based on a recent scientific discovery made by our team we have developed a technology for superfast and extremely scalable logic and computing circuits with minimal energy losses, which has the potential to become the leading technology in the future world of largescale computing and telecommunication infrastructures.

We propose a portable chemical analysis system capable of identifying chemical substances at trace concentrations (sub-ppm), even in case of a complex matrix of interfering species.

Geopolymers are synthetic inorganic polymers obtained from an aluminosilicate powder and an aqueous solution of alkaline hydroxides or silicates. The material is mesoporous and a multidimensional and functional porosity can be generated through the addition of fillers or the use of specific techniques.

The mix-design of the mixture, pure or composite, allows to change the chemical-physical properties of the final material, also thanks to the nucleation of zeolitic phases. Geopolymers also possess ion exchange and electrostatic interaction capabilities.

VisLab laboratory of IMM possesses a latest generation Raman micro-spectroscope equipped for vibrational measurements with high spatial and spectral resolution, at controlled temperature and in fast-imaging. The apparatus can be used to collect information and chemico-physical maps without the need for sample preparation and alteration, therefore for non-destructive studies and in operating conditions.

The invention consists of a method and apparatus for the delivery at low pressure (equal to or less than 10^-7 Torr) of monoatomic fluorine for reaction with surfaces in an ultra-clean environment. Thanks to the low pressure values involved in the proposed method, the risks associated with the use of fluorine are reduced to a minimum.

The invention is about the development of a device and its methodology for measuring the active and reactive sound intensity from the impedance computation. The active intensity is calculated directly in the frequency domain multiplying the complex impedance and power spectrum of the air particle velocity. A second line of post-processing is applied to obtain the overall complex sound intensity.

This invention comprises an interrogation and readout differential method for chemical sensors based on Surface Plasmon Resonances (SPR). The integration of the SPR sensing unit (chip or other), as intermediate reflecting element of a Fabry-Perot (FP) optical resonator, is the starting point for the application of this method.

Flow technologies for the synthesis of chemical intermediates have great potential at the industrial level and the synthesis of nanoparticles (NPs) can speed up the development of new products. In this context, we could find the technology for the synthesis of NPs. The NPs (Au, Ag, or Pt) are synthesized in a single step and are functionalized with polymeric stabilizers (such as PVP, PVA, PEG, or others) or with thio-glycosidic fragments.

Chemical solution deposition of metal-organic precursors have favoured the research and development of thin films of simple and complex oxides such as Pb(Zr,Ti)O3, and Al2O3, up to their industrial application in pyroelectric and capacitor devices. Deposition methods used are spin-on and dip-coating. The advantages of the techniques are:

(i) low cost of equipment and chemicals

(ii) large area deposition

(iii) low crystallisation temperatures

The development of new materials with near-infrared emission (NIR, 700 – 1000 nm) represent an important target in the technological progress of innovative active components for OLED devices (including flexible ones), surveillance systems, autonomous driving, night vision sensors, fiber optic telecommunications and medical systems. In all these fields it still lacks a commercial NIR-OLED technology.