Li-ion battery is ubiquitous and has emerged as the major contender to power electric vehicles, yet Li-ion is slowly but surely reaching its limits and controversial debates on lithium supply cannot be ignored. New sustainable battery chemistries must be developed and the most appealing alternatives are to use Ca or Mg metal anodes which would bring a breakthrough in terms of energy density relying on much more abundant elements. Since Mg and Ca do not appear to be plagued by dendrite formation like Li, metal anodes could thus safely be used.

Flexoelectricity, the coupling between an inhomogeneous deformation and the electrical polarization, has emerged a “hot” topic in modern materials science due to its cross-cutting relevance to many phenomena of fundamental and technological interest. Understanding the intriguing physics that governs its behaviour at the nanoscale is crucial to harnessing the potential of strain gradients in practical applications, and such a progress requires a substantial support from theory.

Tmol4TRANS aims to create operative molecular systems that will efficiently be inserted in three-terminal nanodevices to function as transistors at room temperature (RT).

Textile objects pervade human environments and their versatile manipulation by robots would open up a whole range of possibilities, from increasing the autonomy of elderly and disabled people, housekeeping and hospital logistics, to novel automation in the clothing internet business and upholstered product manufacturing.

Catalysis, a multidisciplinary science at the heart of many industrial processes, is crucial to deliver future growth and minimize anthropogenic environmental impact, thus being critical to our quality of life. Thus, the development and fundamental understanding of innovative new catalyst systems has clear, direct and long-term benefits to the chemical manufacturing sector and to the broader knowledge-based economy.

The goal of this project is to pursue new methods in the mathematical analysis of non-local and non-linearpartial differential equations. For this purpose we present several physical scenarios of interest in the context of incompressible fluids, from a mathematical point of view as well as for its applications: both from the standpoint of global well-posedness, existence and uniqueness of weak solutions and as candidates for blowup. The equations we consider are the incompressible Euler equations, incompressible porous media equation and the generalized Quasi-geostrophic equation.

The gravitational wave window is now open. It is then imperative to build quantitative models of neutron stars that use all the available tracers to constrain fundamental physics at the highest densities and magnetic fields. The most magnetic neutron stars, the magnetars, have been recently suggested to be powering a large variety of explosive and transient events.

Silkworms produce a fibrous material to form their cocoons. The fibres have long been used to make silk fabrics for high-end clothing. More recently, the versatile protein polymers in the cocoons have been exploited for biomedical applications. In addition to biocompatibility, elasticity, and structural strength, silk fibroin offers transparency, permeability, and a refractive index that all make it particularly attractive for use in the eye. SILK-EYE is pioneering the development of the next generation of corneal implants and lenses exploiting these characteristics.

In the past decade, increasing evidence has supported the role of integrated mechanical and chemical signalling networks in controlling cell activity and regulating wound repair. Harnessing mechanotransduction, the ways in which cells convert mechanical stimuli into electrochemical activity, is a growing area of research in skin repair. However, techniques are needed to turn non-invasive stimuli into cellular signals that are tightly controlled in space and time, so as to promote healing in deep tissues. The EU-funded SIROCCO project is exploiting 'magnetic switches' to get the job done.

Thermal and solar energy as well as body movement are all sources of energy. They can be exploited by advanced technology, obviating the need for battery recharging. These local ambient sources of energy can be captured and stored. However, their low intensity and intermittent nature reduces the recovery of energy by microscale instruments, highlighting the need for an integrated multisource energy harvester. Existing methods combine different single source scavengers in one instrument or use multifunctional materials to concurrently convert various energy sources into electricity.