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Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering

April 2024

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  • Picture of the Month
The image shows the Taiwanese research group of Dr. Ya-Yu Chiang and Professor Kockmann © AD​/​BCI

March 2024 - Prof. Norbert Kockmann joins the team around Dr. Ya-Yu Chiang of the Multi-scale Fluid Manipulation Lab to perform experiments in zero gravity at ZARM in Bremen

Experiments at ZARM Bremen

Dr. Ya-Yu Chiang received her doctorate from TU Dortmund University's Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering in 2014 for her work on the "Development of a Microfluidic Switching Platform for the Temporal Investigation of Membrane Receptor Signal Transduction" under the supervision of Prof. Kockmann. After finishing her Post-Doc at University College London she has been appointed as a professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National Taiwan University. Her current research focuses on the continuous flow separation of droplet-based microfluidic systems. To investigate the influence of gravity on a successful liquid-liquid separation the team of the Multi-scale Fluid Manipulation Lab visited the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen. The laboratory experiments are transferred to a specially equipped drop capsule that is dropped from a height of 120 meters. Each drop, and therefore each experiment, lasts around 5 seconds. Before each measurement, a vacuum is created in the drop tower to ensure the best conditions for studying microgravity. The equipped drop capsule and the team with members of TU Dortmund University, National Taiwan University, and ZARM can be seen in the attached image. Another drop tower campaign is already scheduled for April 2024. The new obtained results could contribute to perform flow chemistry in space. Prof. Kockmann and Dr. Chiang are looking forward to continuing their collaboration.