The advances in paper microfluidics taking place in recent years show that the new generation of paper-based devices will be able to overcome the limitations of traditional lateral flow tests and offer more accurate and specific information. However, the quantification of paper devices signals by colorimetry, electrochemistry or fluorescence entails the use of sensors and electronic components that require energy to function.

Solid catalysts are key components of many industrial processes, offering advantages such as reuse and ease recovery. This research programme aims to develop a new concept and methodology for the synthesis of zeolite catalysts. Zeolites are solid, porous catalysts that have wide ranging industrial applications for gas adsorption, separation and catalysis. While a relatively large number of zeolites have been synthesised, zeolite selection as catalyst for a particular reaction still retains a large element of trial and error.

More than 250 years after establishing the electrical nature of the lightning flash, we still do not understand how a lightning channel advances. Most of these channels progress not continuously but in a series of sudden jumps and, as they jump, they emit bursts of energetic radiation. Despite increasingly accurate observations, there is no accepted explanation for this stepped progression.

The main objective of 4D-PET is to develop an innovative whole-body PET scanner based in a new detector concept that stores 3D position and time of every single gamma interaction with unprecedented resolution. The combination of scanner geometrical design and high timing resolution will enable developing a full sequence of all gamma-ray interactions inside the scanner, including Compton interactions, like in a 3D movie.

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.