Group News & Activities
2024
Dr. Michael Plötze elected President of DTTG
The DTTG (German-Austrian-Swiss Clay Group) held its biannual general assembly on September 17th, 2024 at the 11th Mid-European Clay Conference (MECC) in Pilsen organized by the Czech Clay Group. Elections were held to renew the board council for the next two years:
Michael Plötze was elected as the new president and Wolfgang Zucha as the new student representative in the advisory board of the DTTG.
DTTG is organising the next MECC from September 6-11th 2026 at ETH Zurich (more infos on the DTTG webpage www.dttg.ethz.ch)
Note that Clay is the Rock of the Year 2025 chosen by the BDG, the German Association of Professional Geoscientists. What could be a better choice?
2019
ClayLab has acquired a new ICP-OES.
Our new simultaneous ICP-OES (Agilent 5110) replaces our old AAS which greatly improves our capacities in chemical analysis e.g. of sequential extractions and exchangeable ions in clays.
2018
Thomas Blattmann has successfully defended his doctoral thesis.
In course of his PhD Thomas investigated sedimentological processes in the South China Sea and Luzon River. He investigated the nature and stability of organo-mineral interactions and their connection with mineralogical (particularly clay mineralogical) composition. Congratulations!
2017
ClayLab has acquired a brand new X-ray diffractometer (XRD).
The most frequently used technique for the identification and quantification of minerals in mineral assemblages in various material (rocks, soils, concrete …) is X-ray diffraction (XRD). Our newest Bruker D8 diffractometer is equipped with the most recent Lynxeye detector (Lynxeye XE-T) and a sample changer enabling a high throughput, without compromising on quality.
March 4, 2016
Pascal Minder is our newest PhD after defending his thesis "Applications of Chemical Modification of Smectite Clays in Geotechnical Problems".
September 30, 2015
Martin Valter defends his PhD thesis "Influence of Physical Factors on Properties of Clays in the Radioactive Waste Disposal".