The Mercator Research Center Ruhr (MERCUR) is funding joint new research projects at the three universities of the UA Ruhr with a total of 5.5 million euros. The sum is distributed among nine projects. Two of them will later become the focus of a cluster of excellence. The UDE is involved in both.

Bringing together the fields of laser additive manufacturing and materials science is the goal of the international conference "New Frontiers in Materials Design for Laser Additive Manufacturing", which will take place from May 25 to 28, 2021, at the Hotel Schloss Montabaur. High-ranking keynote speakers will present and discuss current developments. Registration deadline for the conference organized by the Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CENIDE) is December 6.

Scientists at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Yuri Gagarin State Technical University in Saratov have developed a sensor that detects water molecules that sink onto its surface. The basis of the sensor is MXenes, two-dimensional inorganic compounds consisting of layers of transition metal carbides and nitrides only a few atoms thick.