A LIST patented technology that is at the heart of a collaborative project has won what is known to be the “Oscars” of the composites world: the JEC Composites Innovation Awards 2026. 

The recognized project, the Highly Loaded Thermoplastic Wing Rib demonstrator, was initiated by Daher, an industry leader in composite manufacturing for aerospace and aeronautics, in close collaboration with partners including Victrex, CETIM and AniForm. Within the project, the Structural Composites Unit at LIST played a key technological role by developing and applying its patented infrared welding process, which enables the rapid and lightweight assembly of thick carbon-fibre-reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) components. This welding solution makes it possible to assemble two elementary parts into a T-shaped wing rib without mechanical fasteners. This contributes to weight reduction, cost efficiency and recyclability.

New research maps how concentrations of 6 insidious components of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) pollution have changed over the last 20 years, finding an overall trend of lowered exposure in the United States. It reveals how chronic exposure to each has respectively impacted cardiovascular (CVD) mortality across various regions and in different racial and ethnic groups. Notably, non-Hispanic Black people and Hispanic people have not experienced the same reduction in PM_2.5-attributable CVD mortality seen overall across the country. PM_2.5 contains ingredients such as sulfate, soil dust, black carbon, ammonium, nitrate, and organic matter – each of which varies in concentration regionally and affects CVD mortality individually. Here, Ying Hu and colleagues have disentangled how each of these PM_2.5 components affected CVD mortality across the contiguous U.S. from 2001 to 2020. Through modeling, they compared mortality records from 3,103 counties with long-term PM_2.5 exposure data. They observed that overall PM_2.5 concentrations declined, as did related CVD mortality. Specifically, Hu et al. found that reductions in sulfate and ammonium concentrations contributed to a CVD mortality decrease from 42,200 to 23,500, spotlighting the role of both compounds in deaths. However, the team did notice regional variations in components’ respective concentrations, as well as attributable mortality, extending to 2020. They also observed that racial and ethnic groups experienced different rates of decline in PM_2.5-attributable CVD mortality. “These disparities are not only persistent but are worsening over time, as non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic populations are experiencing a slower decline in PM_2.5-attributable deaths,” the authors write. They highlight redlining and exclusionary zoning as practices that put minorities in locations with higher PM_2.5 exposure and point towards systemic inequities in healthcare access as furthering this health burden.