CEST celebrated the expansion of its Linz location in Stahlstraße, which was inaugurated on Thursday, 25.10.2018. On more than 500 m² the most modern infrastructure including the latest equipment is now available.

The Austrian economy is currently running like a well-oiled gearbox. This is not only due to the economic skill of the industry, but also to the know-how of domestic and internationally renowned research institutions. “CEST Kompetenzzentrum für elektrochemische Oberflächentechnologie GmbH is one of the main innovation drivers. The COMET K1 Centre, with a total project volume of EUR 19.4 million over four years (2015 – 2018), acts as an important driving force at the interface between science and industry and has established itself highly successfully over the years as an expert in the electrochemical treatment of surfaces. The province of Upper Austria is contributing EUR 3.35 million in the current funding period. With the highly successful interim evaluation in the first half of the year, the funding period has already been extended to a further 4 years. This confirms that CEST carries out outstanding research work in close cooperation with industry”. Dr. Michael Strugl, Deputy Governor of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, underlines.

“In the future, the focus in Linz will be on research projects in the field of functional surfaces, corrosion protection and corrosion testing as well as the testing of adhesive bonds,” explains sales manager Ulfried Pirker: “In recent years, bonding technologies in particular have become increasingly important. In addition to new welding techniques, adhesive bonding is becoming more and more popular. There is still a massive need for research in this area, which we are now responding to with our expansion in Linz with our own bonding test laboratory. However, we are also focusing particularly on the automotive sector with our own laboratory for so-called cathodic dip painting”.

CEST is co-organizer of the 3rd International Meeting on Material Science for Energy Related Applications, which will take place from September 25 to 26, 2018 at the Faculty of Physical Chemistry of Belgrade University. The center will be represented with four presentations.

CEST is represented with 8 presentations at the Scientific Congress for Corrosion in Europe, EUROCORR 2018, which will take place from 9 to 13 September in Krakow, Poland.

COMET is an initiative from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT) and the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy (BMWFW). Central motivation is the development of new competences and the increased internationalization as a quality feature of excellent cooperative research.

During this eight year program, a mid-term evaluation based on a written application and a site visit took place. This mid-term evaluation was focusing on the existing K1 centers of the 3 ^rd  call, which are expected to carry out research at a highly international level within this framework of a research program jointly defined by science and industry.

Subject to confirmation by the Federal Ministries, and based on the site visit jury which met on the 16.03.2018 at CEST, the FFG informally approved further funding of our Center within the next four years of the funding period.

Funding of national and international projects with a volume up to € 20.4 million is available, with a maximum project funding rate of 40%.

As one of 6500 exhibitors from 70 different countries, CEST introduced the newest trends and developments in the field of functional surfaces at the worldwide most important industrial exhibition in Hanover.

Based on the high relevance of this topic, our booth was very well visited throughout the whole week and many new contacts were made.

Most inquiries and development request thereby addressed the new field of 3D printing and the post-process treatment of printed parts. In addition to this, there is still a clear demand and need for solutions in the field of corrosion protection and functional coatings.

CEST will continue and focus its efforts in the developments of new solutions in these fields and is the first partner for industry regarding technology improvement and innovation.

28 ^th and 29 ^th May 2018

On behalf of our annual “bioelectrochemistry and more…” meeting, numerous distinguished experts from this field as well as CEST’s in house experts and colleagues from the AIT gathered together in Wiener Neustadt. Our visitors attended from renowned institutions such as Imperial College (UK), Kobe University (JP) or the Flinders University in Australia (AU) and presented their current work as well as the newest trends and developments.

The mixture of experts from the field of materials (e.g. carbon based nanomaterials) biology (protein/receptor chemistry) and medicine created a highly fruitful basis for new project ideas and innovative new collaborations. This interdisciplinary approach is highly valuable for our Dept. of bioelectrochemistry, which is one of the three key areas in our COMET K1 center for Electrochemical Surface Technology. The organization of scientific highlights is crucial for a scientific exchange, an increased (international) visibility and the recognition of Wiener Neustadt as technological and research city. Beside these aspects, a number of young scientists (mainly PhD candidates) were invited to get the possibility to present their work in a short presentation and to get in contact with leading experts in a small and familiar environment.

Invited speakers for this workshop were:

Fabio Biscarini, Life Science Department, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

Georg Gramse, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Life Science Center, Austria

Andreas Offenhäusser, Peter Grünberg Institute, Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany

Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS) / Institute of Physical Chemistry, Austria

Rudolf Heer, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria

Annette Andrieu-Brunsen, Technical University Darmstadt, Germany

Paul Meredith, Department of Physics, Swansea University, UK

Anna Maria Coclite, Institute of Solid State Physics, Graz University of Technology, Austria

Sabine Szunerits, Institut d’Electroique de Microelectronique et de Nanotechnologie, Université de Lille, France

Izabella Brand, Institute of Chemistry, University of Oldenburg, Germany

Ingo Köper, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Australia

Wolfgang Schuhmann, Analytical Chemistry, Ruhr University Bochum

Carlo A. Bortolotti, Department of Life Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

Kenichi Morigaki, Laboratory of Artificial Bio-Membrane, Kobe University, Japan