QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Queensland Government

German research connections

Scientific research in Queensland covers a broad range of areas, from fundamental science in biotechnology and nanotechnology to applied science. Scientific research in the physical sciences, the life sciences, social sciences and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) contributes to innovation across all industry sectors. Discoveries by Queensland researchers have social and environmental benefits, enabling policy-makers and industry to respond to global challenges in the areas of health and medicine, food and fibre production, mining, major environment issues and climate change. The Queensland Government supports scientific research by funding projects, collaborative arrangements, skills development and facilities, to help attract and keep world-class researchers in Queensland, as well as providing short-term funding for collaborative research projects conducted at leading international institutions and agencies. Here are the 2011-12 Queensland International Fellowship winners who will be working in Germany, together with a precis of their research.

Professor Myron Philip Zulucki The University of Queensland

Dr Peng Yu The University of Queensland > Fraunhofer IFAM Dresden “Fabrication of Al and Ti based Hollow Sphere Structures (HSSs)” Hollow sphere structures (HSSs) represent the only industrialized porous metals with controllable geometry and consistent properties, where commercially available polystyrene spheres spheres are coated with metal powder and subsequently sintered to remove the polystyrene cores leaving sintered dense metal shells. In spite of their wide applications in industry, the fabrication of HSSs is still limited to steels. While the important structural materials, Al and Ti, have long been regarded unsuitable for the process because their affinity to oxygen leads to oxidation in sintering. The proposed project combines the HSS fabrication technique developed by Fraunhofer IFAM and the advanced sintering techniques used for light alloys at the University of Queensland to develop an industrially viable route to fabricating Al and Ti based HSSs. This project will establish optimized fabrication parameters for industry to produce Al and Ti based HSSs. Mr Christopher Henderson Queensland University of Technology > Karlsruhe Institute of Technology “Modelling of centralised and distributed supply networks for sugarcane biomass, suitable for renewable green energy capacity building in Queensland” The greatest single hurdle to large scale bioelectricity and second generation biofuel projects is the delivery of biomass feedstock at sufficiently low costs and large quantities to achieve the economies of scale required for commercial viability. This fellowship will examine the utilisation of existing and modified (novel) biomass feedstock supply networks for the recovery of sugarcane harvest residue as feedstock for the large scale production of bioenergy products in the Queensland sugar industry. The fellowship will capitalise on a developing collaboration between The Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities at QUT and The Institute for Industrial Production at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, in the space of techno-economic studies of bioenergy value chains. The research will build capabilities in renewable energy biomass supply chain modelling which will be of direct benefit to the future diversification of the Queensland sugar industry into bioenergy and other bioproducts. business.qld.gov.au

> Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology “To move or not to move: the genetics of caterpillar foraging behaviour in a model plant system” Plants defend themselves against attack by insects and diseases in various ways. In some cases these defences are not well expressed in our crops. Pest management in the future will increasingly rely on tailoring genetic improvements in a plant’s defensive armoury. Disentangling the effects of constitutively expressed plant defence, and responses of the plant that are induced by insect feeding, on the interaction between herbivorous pest insects and host plants is pivotal to such improvements. This fellowship will develop and build on an alliance between UQ and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena. The alliance will enhance existing projects in insect-plant interaction research on key crop pests in Queensland at UQ, and lead to the development of new projects in this and related fields. It will lead to exchanges of plant and insect material, as well as on-going exchange of staff and students in the future. Professor Jay Yang Queensland University of Technology > Karlsruhe Institute of Technology “Developing Research and Capacities for Managing Waste and Ageing Built Assets in Queensland” Through this project I will respond to the emerging challenges that the people of Queensland are facing n terms of green environment, carbon footprint reduction and smart education. I will develop two specific areas for research and capacity building, namely mobile computing applications for managing and reducing waste, and decision making on the regeneration of ageing built assets. This fellowship will strengthen and capitalise on a recently established international alliance between QUT and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) of Germany. From our preliminary work we identified that KIT has established research and development excellence in the two areas mentioned above, which present a knowledge gap, and a deficiency in practice among our local commercial building and infrastructure sectors. Through this fellowship I will gain knowledge and expertise currently lacking in Queensland higher education and industries, build research capacity for Queensland’s young researchers and practitioners, and further develop the existing QUT-KIT alliance.

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