TU Delft Botanic Garden
Institution Code: DELF
BGCI Member: Yes
About the TU Delft Botanic Garden
TU Delft Botanic Garden was founded on its present location in 1917. During the first decades the garden was involved mainly in education of students who specialized for positions in tropical countries, especially the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia.
The 'Applied Botanic Garden'has expanded its collection of 'useful'plants and covers now over 6000 taxa. Nowadays, the garden still retains applied plants as a major topic. Many applied research programs are based on the plant collection. All applications of plants comprise the core business of the garden and put the garden as a centre of expertise of applied sciences in the Netherlands.
Current Applied Research Programs:
1. Electrospraying of Taxus baccata. Electrostatic hydrodynamic atomisation (EDHA) induces the formation of aerosols from liquid plant components such as the precursors of Taxol and Taxotere.
2. Plants as biofilter. Removal of heavy metals in water from tropical mining. Cyperus papyrus, Pistia stratiotes and Eichornia crassipes can absorb and survive high concentrations of heavy metals. Research concentrates on plant deposits and optimalization.
3. Drought resistance research with Aloe vera in order to restore plant growth and the water table in extremely arid areas.
4. Study of wave patterns and wave characteristics in various mangrove forests in Vietnam in order to understand and to use mangrove as a natural coastal defence.
5. High-performance (bio)composites reinforced with natural fibres.
6. UV protection based on cuticular plant waxes.
7. Improve the stability of dikes in the tropics with Vetiveria zizanoides (matrix roots)and Cuperus rotundus (mat roots).
8. Development of a new type of "green" noise barrier.
Current Other Research:
9. Phenology of plants in greenhouses.
10. Design of a new public park in Sao Paulo (Brazil), includes a halophyte filter, an aeration system of water and furthermore displays of rare local trees and useful trees as an educational target.
11. The garden host research of purification of harbour mud (Department of Biotechnology TU Delft). Modified, enzymatically active bacteria purify mud from harbours of Belgium,Germany, France and The Netherlands. Algae are applied to revitalize the resulting waste water.
Main Address:
TU Delft Botanic Garden
Poortlandplein 6
Gate: Poortlandplein 6
Delft
NL- 2628 BM Netherlands
Telephone: +31 15 2782356/2789396
Fax: +31 15 2782355
URL: www.botanischetuin.tudelft.nl
Primary Email: Botanischetuin@TUDelft.nl