A winning synergy for an ERC grant
A transdisciplinary collaboration between the research teams of Prof. Markus Antonietti and Prof. Patrice Simon obtained a prestigious ERC (European Research Council) grant.
6.5 million euros from the European Research Council will fund an ambitious collaborative project led by Prof. Simon, RS2E deputy director and member of the University Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, and Prof. Antonietti, from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Germany.
Patrice Simon will bring to the project his expertise in electrochemical characterization and his know-how in the field of materials in order to produce high-power electrodes.
The awarded ERC grant is part of the Synergy program whose goal is to help “groups of two to four outstanding researchers bring together complementary skills, knowledge and resources in one ambitious project”.
More than 440 proposals were submitted. Only 34 were selected.
For more information: https://erc.europa.eu/news/erc-2020-synergy-grants-results
---
The MoMa-Store project: At the nanometric scale, the confinement of an electrolyte (conductive substance) in porous materials leads to desolvation phenomena and to the reorganization of solvent molecules. Those effects, also observable in 2D materials, contribute in the increase of the charge storage capacity via still unknown mechanisms. One goal of the project is to take advantage of these new mechanisms to improve, as already mentionned, the storage capacity and the speed of reactions (power). Another axis of research concerns the surface modification of the materials by creating artificial passivation layers or semiconductor layers to block the action of electrolytes and thus increase the the operating voltages of the systems and therefore the stored energy.