Insights into the SFB 1316
Virtual public 360° tour of the SFB 1316
Insights into the projects and laboratories, the opportunity to take a look at the various experiments and diagnostics and ask live questions about them - this opportunity is available to everyone on 27.10.2021 at 4 pm during a virtual 360° tour. The tour is aimed at the general public and thus offers not only researchers and students but also interested persons outside of university the opportunity to experience research interactively and get to know the projects better.
- To participate in the virtual tour, registration is requested at
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PUBLIC RELATIONS
Plasmas for all
A great many everyday technologies would not exist without plasmas. The teams of the Collaborative Research Centres want to share knowledge about their relevance with the public.
Driving the plasma van to school
For many years, the plasma researchers at RUB have been committed to introducing plasmas to school students in different year groups. “Physics teachers sometimes conduct experiments that involve plasmas, but the word plasma doesn’t even appear in the curriculum,” explains Science Manager Dr. Marina Prenzel. In order to familiarise secondary school students with the concept of a plasma, the SFB team, in cooperation with Professor Heiko Krabbe and other physics didactics experts, has constructed various plasma experiments that can be stowed away in boxes and handily transported in a minibus. The researchers use them for interesting 90-minute workshops in sixth-form classes, where students can do their own experiments and learn about different applications of plasmas. “This is how we want to create awareness that plasmas are extremely important for many of our current technologies,” says Prenzel.
Students evaluate research projects
Students should not only be given the chance to learn what a plasma actually is and where it is used. Rather, the SFB team is also currently setting up a project in collaboration with the physics didactics department that aims at promoting the evaluation skills of adolescents and young adults. Here, students are to gain insights into various plasma research projects and evaluate which of these projects they would support. Another goal is to convey the significance of plasmas for the challenges of global warming.
More than 20 years of plasma summer school
For more than 20 years, plasma researchers at RUB have been organising an annual international summer school for Master’s students and doctoral candidates. It originally emerged from a European Erasmus project, acquired under the auspices of the Eindhoven University of Technology. When the funding ran out in 2000, the RUB team dedicated itself to continuing it. “The school is practically always overbooked,” says co-organiser Dr. Marc Böke. The 80 to 90 participants each year and the lecturers come from all over the world. The aim of the seven-day school is to give them insights into all the major technically relevant plasmas and, at the same time, to enable them to network with each other and with established researchers in the field. “Some of the former participants are now themselves running plasma labs,” says Böke. The RUB team hopes to resume the successful format soon, despite the coronavirus situation.
adapted from Julia Weiler, RUB
New funding - Ruhr Conference
Plasma research contributes to new Research Center “Future Energy Materials and Systems”
The state NRW will fund four research centers and one research college during the next years in the framework of the funding instrument "Ruhr Konferenz". One research center “Future energy materials and systems” will support the plasma science at RUB in the area of synthetic plasma chemistry. Plasma chemistry is a key subject in the CRC 1316 and will be strengthend by this measure in the upcoming years. (Image (c) hagenvontroja)
Public Relations
Plasma Trial Day - What is plasma and where does it find application in technology & research?
Interested high school students are invited to participate in the Plasma Trial Day on Jan. 28, 2020 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. online. The chairs of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum will introduce themselves.
Technical plasmas find their application in many areas of everyday life and enable many achievements of our engineered world, such as in microelectronics, optics or mechanical engineering. But also in areas like air purification, sterilization and medicine plasmas can be used effectively in innovative concepts.
The fundamentals of technical applications are our field of research. We work interdisciplinary with partners from research and industry to develop innovative concepts and systems. And we would like to explain to you the largely unknown concept of physical plasma and introduce you to how we use and research the "fourth state of matter". Furthermore, we would like to show you how you might become part of a research team in the future!
Please register by email to:
Public research activities
"Mobile plasma workshop" for high school students finished
The last working step for the recent project of public relations is completed. The plasma truck, namely the mobile workshop for students, addresses physics courses within the last two years of school time.
The didactic concept of the workshop is the deepening of existing knowledge by connecting the pre-known physics with concepts from plasma physics. The concept was developed together with the research group physics didactics of Prof. Krabbe at the faculty of physics and astronomy at Ruhr-University Bochum. Within the framework of a Master thesis, Jasmin Schmidt analysed the existing knowledge of the students concerning plasmas. She found that a lot of experiments and descriptions of phenomena were treated during the classes, but have not been connected to plasmas.
Here, the workshop picks up the known experiments and categorises them in a new way. Finally, interested school classes in and around Bochum can book the workshop for a time period of 90 minutes. On the day of the workshop, public relations staff as well as assistant students will visit the school class. A short movie has been produced to introduce the audience to the topic. Finally, the students have the chance to work on the experiments by themselves in small groups. A booklet with information on the experiments leads through the workshop. First groups might try out the workshop after the summer holidays in case that Covid-19 measures are allowing it.
Maike Kai & Marina Prenzel, public relations CRCs