2021 - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

Technion - Israel Institute of Technology > 2021

Electricity from the Sea: Researchers from the Technion have developed a new method that harvests an electrical current directly from seaweed in an environmentally friendly and efficient fashion. The idea, which came to doctoral student Yaniv Shlosberg while he was on the beach, has been developed by a consortium of researchers from three Technion Faculties who are members of the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), along with a researcher from the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute (IOLR).

Seaweed is grown for a variety of industries, including food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals

The researchers have presented their new method for collecting an electrical current directly from macroalgae (seaweed) in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics. The paper describes results obtained from researchers from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, the Faculty of Biology, the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, GTEP, and IOLR.

The use of fossil fuels results in the emission of greenhouse gases and other polluting compounds. These have been found to be connected to climate change, as evidenced by a variety of terrestrial phenomenon that have brought climate change to the forefront of global concerns. Pollution due to use of these fuels starts from their extraction and transportation around the globe, to be used in centralized power plants and refineries.

These problematic issues are the driving force behind research into methods of alternative, clean, and renewable energy sources. One of these is the use of living organisms as the source of electrical currents in microbial fuel cells (MFC). Certain bacteria have the ability to transfer electrons to electrochemical cells to produce electrical current. The bacteria need to be constantly fed and some of them are pathogenic.

A similar technology is Bio-PhotoElectrochemical Cells (BPEC). As for the MFC, the source of electrons can be from photosynthetic bacteria, especially cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae). Cyanobacteria make their own food from carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight, and in most cases they are benign. In fact, there are cyanobacteria such as Spirulina, that are considered “superfoods” and are grown in large quantities. The research groups of Profs. Adir and Schuster have previously developed technologies that utilized cyanobacteria for obtaining electrical current and hydrogen fuel, as published in Nature Communications and Science. Cyanobacteria do have some drawbacks. Cyanobacteria produce less current in the dark, as no photosynthesis is performed. Also, the amount of current obtained is still less than that obtained from solar cell technologies, so that while more environmentally benign, the BPEC is less attractive commercially.

Prof. Noam Adir

In the present study, the researchers from the Technion and IOLR decided to try to solve this issue using a new photosynthetic source for the current – seaweed (macroalgae).

Prof. Gadi Schuster

The research was led by Prof. Noam Adir and the doctoral student Yaniv Shlosberg, from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry and GTEP. They collaborated with additional researchers from the Technion: Dr. Tunde Toth (Schulich Faculty of Chemistry), Prof. Gadi Schuster, Dr. David Meiri, Nimrod Krupnik and Benjamin Eichenbaum (Faculty of Biology), Dr. Omer Yehezkeli and Matan Meirovich (Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering) and Dr. Alvaro Israel from IOLR in Haifa.

Dr. Alvaro Israel

Many different species of seaweed grow naturally on the Mediterranean shore of Israel, especially Ulva (also known as sea lettuce) which is grown in large quantities at IOLR for research purposes.

Doctoral student Yaniv Shlosberg

After developing new methods to connect Ulva and BPEC, currents a thousand times greater than those from cyanobacteria were obtained – currents that are on the level of those obtained from standard solar cells. Prof. Adir notes that these increased currents are due to the high rate of seaweed photosynthesis, and the ability to use the seaweed in their natural seawater as the BPEC electrolyte – the solution that promotes electron transfer in the BPEC. In addition, the seaweed provides current in the dark, about 50% of that obtained in light. The source of the dark current is from respiration – where sugars made by the photosynthetic process are used as an internal source of nutrients. In a fashion similar to the cyanobacterial BOEC, no additional chemicals are needed to obtain the current. The Ulva produce mediating electron transfer molecules that are secreted from the cells and transfer the electrons to the BPEC electrode.

בריכה לגידול אצת האולבה בחיא"ל. משאבה שואבת מים מהים הסמוך אל תוך הבריכה וממנה אל הים. התא הביו-אלקטרוכימי נמצא בתוך הבריכה. כשאצות האולבה הנישאות בזרם מי הים מתנגשות באלקטרודה נוצר זרם חשמל. מדידת זרם החשמל נעשית באמצעות מכשיר הנקרא פוטנציוסטט המחובר למחשב נייד.

The picture shows one of the seaweed (Ulva) growth vats at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute (IOLR) in Haifa. The vat is near the beach, and fresh seawater continuously flows through the system. Inside the vat we have introduced the electrochemical system. As the Ulva move in the vat, they associate with the electrode, producing a light-dependent electrical current that is measured by the external computer-operated potentiostat.

Fossil fuel-based energy producing technologies are known as “carbon positive.” This means that the process releases carbon to the atmosphere during fuel combustion. Solar cell technologies are known as “carbon-neutral,” no carbon is released to the atmosphere. However, the production of solar cells and their transportation to the site of use is many times more “carbon positive”. The new technology presented here is “carbon negative.” The seaweed absorbs carbon from the atmosphere during the day while growing and releasing oxygen. During harvesting of the current during the day, no carbon is released. During the night, the seaweed releases the normal amount of carbon from respiration. In addition, seaweed, especially Ulva, is grown for a variety of industries: food (Ulva is also considered a superfood), cosmeticsת and pharmaceuticals.

“It is a wonder where scientific ideas come from,” says Yaniv Shlosberg, the graduate student who first thought of the possibility of using seaweed. “The famous philosopher Archimedes had a brilliant idea in the bathtub, leading to the “Archimedes’ Principle.” I had the idea one day when I went to the beach. At the time I was studying the cyanobacterial BPEC, when I noticed seaweed on a rock that looked like electrical cords. I said to myself – since they also perform photosynthesis, maybe we can use them to produce current. From this idea came the collaboration from all the Technion and IOLR researchers which led to our most recent paper. I believe that our idea can lead to a real revolution in clean energy production.”

סימולציה המסבירה את תהליך הפקת החשמל: האצה מפרישה מולקולות המחזרות (מעבירות אלקטרון) לאלקטרודת פלדת אל-חלד (האנודה). משם ממשיכים האלקטרונים אל אלקטרודת הפלטינה (קתודה) והלאה אל מולקולות מי הים. בעקבות ריאקציה אלקטרוכימית עם הפלטינה מתפרקים מי הים ויוצרים מימן. מעבר האלקטרונים מהאנודה לקתודה יוצר זרם חשמלי, ואת המימן הנפלט בתהליך אפשר לאגור ולהשתמש בהמשך לייצור אנרגיה נוספת בתאי דלק מימן. הודות לפעולת הפוטוסינתזה, תהליך זה מואץ בחשיפה לשמש, אך הוא נמשך גם בהיעדר אור.

The picture depicts a simulation of the processes of harvesting electrical current from seaweed. The seaweed releases known molecules that transport electrons to a stainless-steel electrode (the anode). The electrons transfer to the second electrode (a platinum cathode) which can reduce protons found in the seawater electrolyte solution to hydrogen gas. The current can either be used directly, or if hydrogen is produced, the gas can be used as a future clean fuel. In the dark, the seaweed produces about 50% of the current obtained in light, as less electrons are produced in the absence of the photosynthetic process.

The Technion/IOLR researchers built a prototype device that collects the current directly in the Ulva growth vat. Prof. Adir adds: “By presenting our prototype device, we show that significant current can be harvested from the seaweed. We believe that the technology can be further improved leading to future green energy technologies.”

Grand Technion Energy Program Annual Research Day: Innovative Developments in Energy and Sustainability

The Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) held its annual Research Day on December 15, 2021. According to Professor Yoed Tsur, GTEP director, “GTEP’s mission is to advance research and to promote multidisciplinary cooperation in sustainable energy related fields on campus. This year, in addition to GTEP’s direct students, we invited all Technion graduate students who conduct energy related research to participate and present a poster. We are proud of the students’ impressive achievements.”

GTEP Research Day Participants

During the event, graduate students presented their research on posters, and three lectures were given:

Green hydrogen production using innovative technology – Professor Avner Rothschild, from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, presented the innovative technology developed together with Professor Gideon Grader from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering that led to the establishment of the H2Pro start-up.
Innovative flow batteries– This presentation explained research by Ph.D. student Rona Ronen-Manukovsky, under the supervision of Associate Professor Matthew Suss from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.
Impact on porous medium through flow pressures–Research by M.Sc. student Arnold Bachrach, under the supervision of Dr. Yaniv Edery from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was covered in this presentation.

הסטודנטים הזוכים. מימין לשמאל: יוסף (ג'ואי) קסל, אמה מססה, רונה רונן-מנוקובסקי, אליהו פרבר וענבל אופן-פולק

L-R: Inbal Offen-Polak, Eliyahu Farber, Rona Ronen-Manukovsky, Emma Massasa and Joseph (Joey) Cassell

The first-prize winners in the poster competition were:

Eliyahu Farber, who developed new methods for the precise production of porous carbon materials. These materials are relevant to a wide spectrum of applications, including batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells.

Inbal Offen-Polak develops low-cost catalysts for urea oxidation – a useful process with applications in water treatment, hydrogen production, and even fuel cells.

Both Eliyahu and Inbal are GTEP Ph.D.students, conducting their research under the supervision of Professor David Eisenberg from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry.

Second prize was awarded to two Ph.D. students:

Emma Massasa from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, under the supervision of Assistant Professor Yehonadav Bekenstein, developed a method for improving properties of proboscites – new materials used in the production of solar energy.

Rona Ronen-Manukovsky from GTEP, who is developing energy storage solutions of a significant size, under the supervision of Associate Professor Matthew Suss from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

The Best M.Sc. Poster Award category was won by GTEP graduate student Joseph (Joey) Cassell, who developed technology for producing solar energy under the supervision of Associate Professor Carmel Rotschild from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Joey and the two first-prize Ph.D. students, Eliyahu and Inbal, will represent GTEP with their research at the Technion’s Jacobs Graduate School Research Day on January 19, 2022.

Who hasn’t sometimes wished for an invisibility cloak? When looking at an object covered by an invisibility cloak, one would see the things behind it, as if light were passing through it, rather than hitting it and bouncing back to the viewer’s eye. The object would thus be rendered invisible. Acoustic cloaking is similar, except that it aims to hide an object from sound waves. Sound goes around the object rather than colliding it and bouncing off it. An acoustic cloak can have multiple applications, from military to oceanography and medical imaging.

Researchers in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion have developed a new physical model that manipulates the propagation of acoustic waves and elastic waves – thus bringing us closer to acoustic cloaking by controlling the waves created by hidden objects. This model that may potentially impact additional applications, including enhanced sensing and energy focusing. The development, which was published in Wave Motion, was headed by Professor Gal Shmuel and postdoctoral fellow Dr. René Pernas-Salomón, in collaboration with Rutgers University Professor Andrew Norris and Professor Michael Haberman of Texas A&M University.

איור סכמטי של מערכת המציגה את אפקט האלקטרומומנטום. כאשר אלמנט פיאזואלקטרי אסימטרי נתון לגלים נכנסים (חץ כחול באיור) הוא מעביר חלק מהגל (חץ ירוק) ומחזיר חלק אחר (חץ אדום). באמצעות השדה החשמלי המופעל עליו (מעגל פתוח, צד ימין; מעגל סגור, צד שמאל) אפשר לשלוט בפאזה של הגל המוחזר, ושליטה זו שונה להחזרות מימין ולהחזרות משמאל.

A schematic drawing of the system, presenting the electromomentum effect. When an asymmetric engineered element is subjected to incoming waves (blue arrow in the figure), it transmits part of the wave (green arrow) and reflects another part (red arrow). By controlling the electric boundary conditions (open circuit on the right; closed circuit on the left), we control over the phase of the reflected waves, in a way that is different for rightward- and leftward incoming waves.

As part of their research, the Technion team developed a new class of metamaterials – artificially engineered materials that exhibit properties not found in natural materials. Metamaterials derive their properties from their engineered microstructure. One example of a metamaterial property is a negative effective mass, which models materials moving in the opposite direction to the force applied to them.

René Pernas-Salomón

The Technion team’s metamaterials possess a new metamaterial property, which they term electromomentum. In these metamaterials, momentum is coupled to applied electric fields, differently than what occur in natural materials: the metamaterial’s momentum alters when an electric field is applied, as described by the electromomentum property. Since the momentum balance of a body determines how elastic and sound waves flow through it, the electromomentum property offers a new knob to electrically control these waves by controlling momentum.

Prof. Gal Shmuel

The research was sponsored by the Israel Science Foundation, the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, the U.S. – Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Which factors determine how fast a quantum computer can perform its calculations? Physicists at the University of Bonn and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have devised an elegant experiment to answer this question. The results of the study are published in the journal Science Advances.

Quantum computers are highly sophisticated machines that rely on the principles of quantum mechanics to process information. This should enable them to handle certain problems in the future that are completely unsolvable for conventional computers. But even for quantum computers, fundamental limits apply to the amount of data they can process in a given time.

פרופ' יואב שגיא (מימין) והדוקטורנט גל נס. קרדיט צילום: רמי שלוש, דוברות הטכניון.

The Technion team with Gal Ness (left) and Prof. Yoav Sagi (right). (Photo credit: Rami Shlush/Technion)

Quantum gates require a minimum time

The information stored in conventional computers can be thought of as a long sequence of zeros and ones, the bits. In quantum mechanics it is different: The information is stored in quantum bits (qubits), which resemble a wave rather than a series of discrete values. Physicists also speak of wave functions when they want to precisely represent the information contained in qubits.

In a traditional computer, information is linked together by so-called gates. Combining several gates allows elementary calculations, such as the addition of two bits. Information is processed in a very similar way in quantum computers, where quantum gates change the wave function according to certain rules.

Quantum gates resemble their traditional relatives in another respect: “Even in the quantum world, gates do not work infinitely fast,” explains Dr. Andrea Alberti of the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bonn. “They require a minimum amount of time to transform the wave function and the information this contains.”

באיור: גולות קוונטיות בפעולה – איור אמנותי של גל-חומר המתגלגל במורד מדרון תלול. קרדיט: Enrique Sahagún, Scixel

Quantum marbles in action – an artistic illustration of a matter wave rolling down a steep potential hill. (Image credit: Enrique Sahagún – Scixel)

Quantum marbles in a bowl of light

More than 70 years ago, Soviet physicists Leonid Mandelstam and Igor Tamm deduced theoretically this minimum time for transforming the wave function. Physicists at the University of Bonn and the Technion have now investigated this Mandelstam-Tamm limit for the first time with an experiment on a complex quantum system. To do this, they used cesium atoms that moved in a highly controlled manner. “In the experiment, we let individual atoms roll down like marbles in a light bowl and observe their motion,” explains Alberti, who led the experimental study.

Atoms can be described quantum mechanically as matter waves. During the journey to the bottom of the light bowl, their quantum information changes. The researchers now wanted to know when this “deformation” could be identified at the earliest. This time would then be the experimental proof of the Mandelstam-Tamm limit. The problem with this, however, is that in the quantum world, every measurement of the atom’s position inevitably changes the matter wave in an unpredictable way. So, it always looks like the marble has deformed, no matter how quickly the measurement is made. “We therefore devised a different method to detect the deviation from the initial state,” Alberti says.

מימין לשמאל: אנדראה אלברטי, דיטר משדה ומנולו (ריברה) לאם. © Volker Lannert/University of Bonn

The team of the University of Bonn with Dr. Manolo Rivera Lam (left), Prof. Dr. Dieter Meschede (center) and Dr. Andrea Alberti (right). (Photo credit: Volker Lannert/University of Bonn)

For this purpose, the researchers began by producing a clone of the matter wave, in other words an almost exact twin. “We used fast light pulses to create a so-called quantum superposition of two states of the atom,” explains Gal Ness, a doctoral student at the Technion and first author of the study. “Figuratively speaking, the atom behaves as if it had two different colors at the same time.” Depending on the color, each atom twin takes a different position in the light bowl: One is high up on the edge and “rolls” down from there. The other, conversely, is already at the bottom of the bowl. This twin does not move – after all, it cannot roll up the walls and so does not change its wave function.

The physicists compared the two clones at regular intervals. They did this using a technique called quantum interference, which allows differences in waves to be detected very precisely. This enabled them to determine after what time a significant deformation of the matter wave first occurred.

Gal Ness (left) and Prof. Yoav Sagi (right). (Photo credit: Rami Shlush/Technion)

Two factors determine the speed limit

By varying the height above the bottom of the bowl at the start of the experiment, the physicists were also able to control the average energy of the atom. Average because, in principle, the amount cannot be determined exactly. The “position energy” of the atom is therefore always uncertain. “We were able to demonstrate that the minimum time for the matter wave to change depends on this energy uncertainty,” says Professor Yoav Sagi, who led the partner team at Technion: “The greater the uncertainty, the shorter the Mandelstam-Tamm time.”

This is exactly what the two Soviet physicists had predicted. But there was also a second effect: If the energy uncertainty was increased more and more until it exceeded the average energy of the atom, then the minimum time did not decrease further – contrary to what the Mandelstam-Tamm limit would suggest. The physicists thus proved a second speed limit, which was theoretically discovered about 20 years ago. The ultimate speed limit in the quantum world is therefore determined not only by the energy uncertainty, but also by the mean energy.

“It is the first time that both quantum speed boundaries could be measured for a complex quantum system, and even in a single experiment,” Alberti enthuses. Future quantum computers may be able to solve problems rapidly, but they too will be constrained by these fundamental limits.

The study was funded by the Reinhard Frank Foundation (in collaboration with the German Technion Society), The German Research Foundation (DFG), the Helen Diller Quantum Center at the Technion, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Learning to communicate: Technion students develop an app for the “Madrasa” project in honor of International Arabic Language Day

The UN’s International Arabic Language Day is commemorated each year on December 18, which is the anniversary of a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly making Arabic one of its official working languages. Students from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology recently developed an app for the Madrasa project to help people learn Arabic. The app features a voice recognition component that will support tens of thousands of students as they work to develop Arabic pronunciation skills.

Madrasa is a social, technological, community-oriented initiative that advocates for better communication in Israeli society through spoken Arabic courses. It promotes language learning through a platform that includes free online courses, extensive activity through digital channels, and many other collaborations. There are currently more than 100,000 students enrolled in Madrasa courses.

According to Gilad Sevitt, founder and director of Madrasa, “During our seven years of operations, we have seen the need for people to practice their speaking proficiency while learning, while hearing the same question from students over and over again: ‘What about an app?’”

This question led to the recent collaboration between “Madrasa” and the Taub Faculty of Computer Science, as part of an “Industrial Project” course under the guidance of Professor Alex Bronstein. The course is focused on cooperation with industry and in the future will also lead to collaborations with various social organizations.

The project was aided by students Mahmod Yaseen and Rajeh Ayashe, who focused on developing the voice recognition components. Students Noor Hamdan, Rina Atieh, Lina Mansour, and Wadad Boulos, worked on developing the app itself. “Working with the students was very effective and helpful,” Sevitt said. “They came on board and contributed greatly to our project and we enjoyed working together on both the linguistic and technological levels.”

Mahmod and Rajeh created an effective infrastructure for bots to have conversations with students. The bot (voice recognition component) creates a conversation in spoken Arabic and teaches new students to pronounce words and have conversations on various topics. The conversations are written by Madrasa’s pedagogical team, and the students developed an editor that directs the level of conversation and content according to the knowledge gained by each student in the online courses.

IBM has been enthusiastic about the development and is considering moving forward with it. “With the help of Technion students, we were able to develop a voice recognition component that will finally allow tens of thousands of students in our online courses to practice their pronunciation in Arabic and speak while learning,” Sevitt said. “The component will be integrated as soon as possible in the courses alongside all videos, games, and exercises, and will be a kind of conversation bot through which students can practice their proficiency of spoken Arabic.”

This project, in which Noor, Rina, Lina, and Wadad are partners, includes the initial development of the app, as well as making various adjustments and solving any glitches that come up in the future.

The app will upgrade the students’ learning experience, provide alerts, and serve as the basis for many other developments, such as mobile games and more. It is expected to be released on Beta in the coming months.

The Technion recently inaugurated the new Amos Horev Sports Arena, named in honor of the larger-than-life general and former Technion president who pushed through various projects to improve student life during his nine-year tenure.

“The Technion is my home,” said Maj. Gen. (ret.) Horev during an October 28, 2021 ceremony attended by Technion President Uri Sivan, members of the Technion administration and board of directors, Friends of the Technion, and former and current Technion leadership. “I’ve always been involved in education . . . and I always aspired to promote excellence. . . Without excellence, our small country will not survive,” he said. “This new building is an expression of excellence. I thank all of you for your contribution to establishing this arena and am very moved to be here with you today.”

The new 21,500 square-foot arena features a court for handball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, badminton, and gymnastics, plus a 350-seat spectators’ gallery. The arena meets international standards, allowing it to host national and international competitions. Built with the generous support of the Friends of the Technion in Israel and around the world, the arena will be part of the 11-acre Technion Sports Village that provides tens of thousands of Technion students, faculty, and alumni with soccer fields, a running track, gyms, swimming pools, an indoor fitness center, and additional courts for squash, basketball, beach volleyball, and tennis.

The new Amos Horev Sports Area is unveiled

Speaking at the inauguration, President Sivan noted that Maj. Gen. Horev was born in 1924, the same year the Technion opened its gates. “Ever since, his life has intertwined with that of the Technion and of Israel,” he said. “During his years as president, the Technion’s status as a leader in fields of national importance, including the development of defense technologies, was greatly strengthened.”

Maj. Gen. Horev served in the Palmach, the elite fighting force of the Jewish underground army during the British Mandate for Palestine. He started to study mechanical engineering at the Technion, but his education was cut short with the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1948. He fought in Jerusalem and in the Negev and participated in the Burma Road convoy that broke the siege of Jerusalem. After the war, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then continued his military career as the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Ordnance, Quartermaster General, and Chief Scientist.

From 1973 to 1982, Maj. Gen. Horev served as President of the Technion, while also helping Rafael transform from a unit within the Ministry of Defense to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. During his Technion tenure, he was instrumental in doubling the size of the campus and constructing the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine building. To support the students’ well-being, he had faculty members give lectures at Army outposts during the Yom Kippur War, and he established the university’s Psychological Services and an audio-visual library for self-study. He hired students for security and cleaning jobs to help make ends meet, and also helped establish student dorms, the university’s first pool, and the sports facilities. Maj. Gen. Horev continues today to serve as a member of the Technion Board of Directors and is Deputy Chairman of the Board of Governors.

“You always had a warm place in your heart for the students and looked for ways to support them. That is why we thought that the arena, which will serve many generations of students in the future, is an exceptionally fitting way to thank you for everything you have done for Technion students,” said Technion Vice President and CEO Professor Boaz Golany.

The Technion family thanks donors Robert Polak of Chicago, Ill.; William and Cynthia Marcus of Chestnut Hill, Mass.; former president of both the ATS – New England and National American Technion Society boards Edward Goldberg of Bozeman, Mont.; and Drs. Nathan and Fariba Fischel of Los Angeles, Calif., alumni of the class of 1983, for their generous contributions to building the new arena.

Technion Students Cook Up Creative, Tasty, and Award-Winning Food Solutions in European Innovation Competition

Students from the Technion’s Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering won top prizes in the EU-supported Food Solutions Project, which is part of EIT FOOD – a program that fosters innovation to create healthy and sustainable food for all. The premise of the competition was to take real-world nutritional and sustainability challenges faced by the food industry and come up with innovative solutions with the potential to transform the food system and promote sustainability and health. Experts and mentors from top European universities supervised the students’ progress, together with leading companies Nestle, Danone-Nutricia, Döhler, IMDEA and Puratos. Two of the Technion teams won first place and another came in third.

From right to left, front row: Dr. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Hadar Kochavi, Christine Oviad, Professor Marcelle Machluf, Nova Neumann, Carolina Lejterer, Maayan Ben-David, Gil Raphael and Liora Bernstein; middle row: Dor Abu Hazira and Professor Avi Shpigelman; back row: Shahar Hefner, Dana Raz, Linor Rochlin, Shlomit Hakim, Victoria Skortov and Professor Uri Lesmes

“This win wraps up a whole year of hard work,” said faculty members and mentors Dr. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Professor Uri Lesmes, and Professor Avi Shpigelman. “This achievement demonstrates the excellence of students in this faculty, not only in the engineering and technological aspects, but also creatively and in their ability to deal with all aspects of the process from market research, creating a business feasibility study, addressing regulatory and marketing issues, conducting shelf-life analysis, planning the commercial manufacturing process, and of course presenting their product to experts.”

This year, the Technion’s participating teams chose to tackle two challenges:

‘GrOAT’: creating an innovative, healthy, and sustainable product using an oat-based ingredient (a challenge presented by the Finnish company Myllyn Paras, which invests considerable resources in plant-based innovation)
‘FoodFE’: (Food for the Elderly): Designing novel food products for the elderly that address the issue of loss of taste, palatability, and efficiency of nutrient uptake.

From right to left; back row – Faculty Dean and Professor Marcelle Machluf, Dr. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Professor Uri Lesmes and Professor Avi Shpigelman/ Front row: The Bioat Group – Liora Bernstein, Carolina Lejterer, Gil Raphael and Maayan Ben-David

Once the teams had formed, they spent around six months developing their product from ideation to final product and presentation. The process involved attempts to assess product manufacturing at the Technion’s food pilot plant under the guidance and extensive mentoring of the three faculty members, and support from senior industry representatives. The students also consulted with chefs at Bishulim – Tel Aviv’s culinary school – who helped refine and resolve some of the culinary aspects.

The Bioat Group won first place for developing a vegan “labneh” cheese spread based on fermenting the oat ingredient and dietary fiber. The team was not only awarded first place by the professional judges, but also came in first in the crowd favorite category. All four team members are graduate students: Maayan Ben-David, Liora Bernstein, Carolina Lejterer, and Gil Raphael. They explained that “we have worked in product development, experienced ups and downs and overcome many challenges on the way from taste and texture to product safety. We are proud of the result and happy to contribute to the global challenge of developing sustainable substitutes for dairy products.” According to the judges, the taste was unique and delicious, and employees from a company with origins in the Middle East gave it the authentic stamp of approval by claiming that the taste was very close to the original labneh they were familiar with.

Bioat’s vegan labneh-style cheese spread

The concept for the product came about when one of the team members was on maternity leave and looking for dairy-free alternatives while nursing her new baby. Her search exposed a big gap in the market for healthy and tasty dairy-free products and so the idea for Bioat was born.

CRACKEAT team with their supervisors – from right to left – top row: Linor Rochlin, Victoria Skortov, Shlomit Hakim, Professor Uri Lesmes. Bottom row: Professor Avi Shpigelman, Dor Abu Hazira, Hadar Kochavi and Dr. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas

The CRACKEAT Group won first place in the Food Products Challenge for the Elderly, keeping in mind their struggles with obesity, diabetes, and nutritional requirements. The team came up with a soy-based, creamy treat with a crisp cookie on top. The product was praised by the judges for its unique presentation and taste. The final product provides a complex experience of different textures, while also being more environmentally friendly than current packaging solutions. It is high in protein and fiber, sugar-free, and low in saturated fat. CRACKEAT went through many taste tests among its target population who gave it the thumbs up for taste and texture. Members of the group were Dor Abu Hazira, Shlomit Hakim, Hadar Kochavi, Victoria Skortov, and Linor Rochlin.

Lite Delight team – from right to left: Shahar Hefner, Christine Oviad, Nova Neumann and Dana Raz

Coming in third place in the Food Products Challenge for the Elderly was another group from the faculty – Shahar Hefner, Nova Neumann, Christine Oviad, and Dana Raz. The four developed Lite Delight, a unique nutritional snack based solely on natural ingredients and tailored to the needs and desires of the senior population. The product offers something chewy but not too chewy that is portable and tasty. The individual brownie-like cake bar was praised for its soft, fluffy texture, combined with a sweet taste and no added sugar. It went through many rounds of rigorous taste testing among its target audiences that resulted in a winning ginger-orange flavor.

Lite Delight – a low-calorie, vegan chocolate cake based on natural ingredients

The proof is in the pudding

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the groups did not fly to Europe to present their products but sent them by courier to the judges so that they could taste them firsthand, having already impressed them with their innovative ideas and business plans. The judges praised Bioat, CRACKEAT, and Lite Delight for their quality and congratulated the teams on their professionalism and attention to detail on their packaging and branding.

The teams’ wins are the latest in a string of student victories from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering in similar EIT FOOD competitions. In 2018, a Technion team won first place with Algalafel – a spirulina-enriched falafel – and in 2020, the Microbes Team won the top spot for its biological solution for preventing fruit juice from spoiling, a phenomenon whose damages are estimated at tens of billions of dollars a year.

Catalysis is responsible for 95% of industrial chemical processes, and directly affects more than 1/3 of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP). What is catalysis? It is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction; “helping it” – achieved by means of a catalyst – a “starter”. The catalyst is not consumed by the reaction, nor changed by it, and can keep on “helping” indefinitely (although in practice catalysts can deactivate in seconds to years). It can be likened to a bossy matchmaker, bringing couples together.

Operando spectroscopy, characterizing catalysts while they are working, forms the basis of the research in Vogt’s group

Many catalysts are made up of nanoparticles on a support, which can have varied structures. A smaller particle has more irregular surfaces, with peaks and valleys, and displays more atoms “sticking out”. A larger particle would have more flat areas. The nanoparticle’s shape and size should affect how effective they are at catalyzing a reaction, depending on whether the reaction needs the peaks and valleys or the flat surfaces. Except sometimes the shape appears to have absolutely no effect – no matter whether the particles are big or small, the reaction occurs at the same rate. This is called “structure insensitivity”. It is a phenomenon that is empirically observed, but for a long time it remained unexplained. It had already been theoretically accepted that it should not exist. Now, Prof. Charlotte Vogt from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, together with an international team of scientists, has found the answer.

Some reactions are structure-sensitive (the surface-normalized catalytic activity changes with catalyst particle size) while others seem to be structure-insensitive (the surface-normalized catalytic activity does not change with catalyst particle size). Vogt and coworkers now explain why the latter is seen; the nanoparticles restructure exposing only certain specific sites.

Prof. Vogt used advanced characterization methods, including particle accelerators and quick spectroscopy to discover that the reactions indeed only appear to be structure insensitive. In truth, what happens is that the catalyst nanoparticle undergoes rapid restructuring. It changes its shape, and displays not the expected “flat surfaces”, but peaks and valleys, leaving only specific reactive sites exposed. The process is so fast, that without the novel technology, and smart experimental design, it could not have been observed.

The study was a collaboration between the Technion, Utrecht University, Eindhoven University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, and the Paul Scherrer Institute. It was recently published in Nature Communications.

One of the big challenges society faces in this century is to make our fuels, materials, and chemicals from fossil-fuel alternatives, such as perhaps carbon dioxide, or biomass waste

Catalysis plays such an important role in nearly every industry; it is easy to see how understanding catalysts and improving them can have a significant impact. Prof. Vogt explains: “I believe the key to a greener, more sustainable future lies in better catalysts. Imagine, for example, turning CO₂ into useful compounds. It sounds like science fiction. The truth is, such a process is theoretically possible, but it is not yet energy efficient. Right now, it would create more pollution than it would save. If, however we could lower the amount of energy required, or if we would be able to tune the catalyst to make specific products, if we could find catalysts that would make these things easier, suddenly it would become feasible. Remember, acid rain used to be a problem we talked about even two decades ago; and now we no longer do. It was solved, using catalysts.”

Prof. Vogt, aged 30, was born in the Netherlands. She arrived in Israel for her Ph.D., and to use her words, fell in love with the country. “This place is amazing,” she says. “I love the sun, the beaches, the food, the vibrant society. I love how open and warm people are. I was made to feel very welcome here. There’s another aspect too: you value family, but also a modern lifestyle; as a woman, I’m not expected here to choose between a career and a family – I can have both.”

Professor Charlotte Vogt

As a scientist too, Prof. Vogt is happy. “There is a culture of search for knowledge here,” she says. “I love applied science, but in my view to truly make an impact, you have to base that on fundamental research. In Israel, that is appreciated, and also funded. I am grateful for bodies like the Israel Science Foundation, which fund research without immediately demanding practical goals. They allow scientists to “play around” with ideas and experiments and make new discoveries. These discoveries are the basis of break-through technological developments in time. It is the difference between going into a room with the purpose of finding a particular tool, and simply going into the same room to explore what’s there. In the first scenario, you’ll find the tool you’re looking for, and only that. In the second, you might find something so much better! That’s the difference between incremental improvements – which are also important – and true scientific breakthroughs.” Of the students in Israel she says, “they come to me with ideas – they don’t wait around to be told what to do.” And the infrastructure is also what she needs. “I used to have to fly from the Netherlands to the US to do some of my experiments,” she explains. “Now I’m going to have almost all the equipment I need next door, for example at the Sarah and Moshe Zisapel nanoelectronics center.”

In 2019, Prof. Vogt won the Israel Vacuum Society (IVS) award for “outstanding early-career achievements”. This year, she was included in the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe, and received the Clara Immerwahr Award – an award for promoting equity and excellence in catalysis research, fostering young female scientists at an early stage of their career. She opened the Catalysis for Fuels of the Future Laboratory at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry and joined the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) in March 2021. She now looks to study catalytic reactions in all the complexity involved in their real-life applications, elucidate the mechanism of varied reactions, and apply this knowledge to help to design new catalysts and better processes to abate climate change.

The Future is Here: Technion Researchers and Sheba Medical Center Have Succeeded in Engineering an Ear

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and Sheba Medical Center have developed an efficient technology for the fabrication of custom-made functional aesthetic implants for the rehabilitation of congenitally deformed ears.

Microtia is a birth defect that occurs when the external ear fails to develop normally, and as a result, is small and improperly formed. Microtia occurs in 0.1 to 0.3 percent of births. Occasionally, besides the aesthetic issue, microtia also involves hearing loss.

Since the “bones” of the outer ear – the auricle – are in fact flexible cartilage and not bone tissue, the customary technique for microtia reconstruction is to use costal cartilage harvested from the patient’s chest. This method involves pain and discomfort as well as risk of further complications. Moreover, constructing an ear that is identical to the other one depends on both the surgeon’s creativity and high-level surgical skills.

Researchers applied new technologies for tissue engineering to fabricate a scaffold that formed neocartilage implants

The journal Biofabrication reported the Israeli researchers’ breakthrough, which was achieved through a collaborative project between Professor Shulamit Levenberg of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion and Dr. Shay Izhak Duvdevani, a senior physician in the Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Department and Head of the Tissue Engineering Lab at Sheba Medical Center.

Dr. Shay Izhak Duvdevani

In the current study, the researchers applied new technologies for tissue engineering, developed in Prof. Levenberg’s lab under the leadership of Dr. Shira Landau, to fabricate a biodegradable auricle scaffold that formed stable, custom-made neocartilage implants.

Dr. Shira Landau

The unique scaffold, which allows for the formation of an aesthetic and stable auricle, is 3D-printed and based on a CT scan. It is biodegradable and forms chondrocytes – the cells responsible for cartilage formation – and mesenchymal stem cells. The scaffold has pores of varying sizes, allowing for cell attachment to form stable cartilage.

The researchers monitored cartilage formation within the auricle construct in the lab for between 10 days and six weeks

According to the researchers, engineering an auricle from the patient’s own cells will reduce the suffering and risk caused to children as a result of harvesting their costal cartilage. Furthermore, it will allow the surgery to be performed on children as young as six years old, rather than the currently accepted practice of waiting until they are 10. Performing the surgery at a younger age is likely to mitigate the psychological effects of microtia on children.

The researchers monitored cartilage formation within the auricle construct in the lab for between 10 days and 6 weeks, and then implanted it in a murine model. The outcome: Graft integration was successful, and the prosthetic ear demonstrated good biomechanical function.

Professor Shulamit Levenberg

According to Prof. Levenberg, “One of the challenges in the study was to find a suitable 3D printing method, since fabricating an ear necessitates the use of biodegradable materials that break down in the body without harming it but have an extremely accurate external structure and small pores. We demonstrated all of this in the present research and estimate that it will be possible to tailor our technology to other applications, such as nasal reconstruction and fabrication of various orthopedic implants.”

The unique scaffold, which allows for the formation of an aesthetic and stable auricle, is 3D-printed and based on a CT scan

Dr. Duvdevani added: “In the present study, we achieved a significant breakthrough by means of the integration of medicine and research, and collaboration between doctors and researchers. This research is another milestone in the transition to advanced technologies in medicine, where the use of 3D printing and tissue engineering will play a significant part and provide patients with an optimal, state-of-the-art response.”