UNITS

Proton-exchange-membrane water electrolyzers are one of the most promising technologies for hydrogen production. Eliminating rare and expensive iridium in current electrocatalysts for the oxygen-evolution reaction (OER) in acidic media would greatly advance this technology for application on a large scale. The objective of the HEMCAT project is to produce new, cost-effective and high-performance (active and stable) electrocatalysts and to eliminate the iridium in OER electrocatalysts. The materials of focus are high-entropy materials (HEMs) that will be prepared from high-entropy alloys (HEAs) with the anodic oxidation process. Starting HEAs will be selected, prepared in bulk form and subjected to anodic oxidation processes to synthesise high-entropy oxides (HEOs) in the form of high-surface-area nanostructured films on HEA substrates. HEOs will be converted to HEMs with various treatments and will be fully characterized in terms of stability, structure and morphology. Finally, they will be tested for electrocatalytic properties in the OER reaction with state-of-the-art characterization techniques. These will include investigations of electronic and structural properties of synthesized cutting-edge electrocatalysts using synchrotron techniques (X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements) under ex-situ, in-situ and operando conditions. HEMCAT addresses key issues in energy storage and conversion that is clean, compact, and ultimately low-cost and at the same time facilitates intra-European knowledge transfer along with direct societal impacts. The new efficient, stable and inexpensive electrocatalysts for the OER in acidic media will bridge the gap between fundamental and applied electrocatalysis and facilitate the development of advanced electrocatalysts for electrocatalytic applications.

The recent observation of many quantum correlated phases, including superconductivity and correlated insulating states, in twisted bilayers of 2D materials, has sparked tremendous interest and boosted intense research activity to understand these phases. The ability of robustly engineering quantum states of matter with few tunable experimental knobs, e.g. the twist angle between the two 2D materials, represents a major breakthrough of these so-called moiré materials, which started the new field of twistronics. In particular, moiré materials made from transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), have gained significant momentum as a novel and robust platform for simulating quantum phases of matter on emergent 2D lattices. While it is widely accepted that these quantum phases are driven by enhanced electron-electron interactions in moiré materials, the quantum nature of many correlated phases is still poorly understood. Theoretical and computational first principles methods can be extremely powerful in helping to unravel the experimental signatures of the different quantum phases and also predict new ones. However, standard methods, like density functional theory, are computationally too costly for moiré systems (for which typical unit cells contain thousands of atoms) and generally unable to tackle the challenges posed by strongly correlated materials. A new approach is therefore required. In this fellowship, I will develop an efficient multi-scale framework, involving different theoretical and computational methods, for studying quantum phases of TMDs moiré superlattices. Specifically, I will combine classical force field calculations, machine-learning based tight-binding methods and many-body methods to overcome the limitations of conventional first-principles approaches while maintaining their predictive power. This framework will allow us to shed light on the nature of the quantum phases hosted in moiré materials, which can be harnessed in future technologies.

Mercury (Hg) is a volatile element that is used for industrial and technological applications and can be potentially toxic for any ecosystem. In Earth science, its accumulation in sedimentary sequences has been recently used to link the major Phanerozoic climatic and biological crisis to massive volcanic events. This is because volcanic degassing is the main mechanism that releases Hg to the atmosphere. While these aspects are receiving increasing scientific interest, it is still unclear what is the source from which a volcanic system acquires its Hg content prior to magma degassing. The few studies addressing the behaviour of Hg in the deep Earth appear to have adopted sample preparation and analytical procedures that might have unintentionally under- or overestimated the actual Hg contents in the rock samples. Project STECALMY seeks to understand the source and mobility of Hg in the Earth's crust by studying the Sesia Magmatic System (SMS), western Southern Alps, Italy, an exposed continental magmatic system that can be tracked from its deepest roots up to its volcanic products. Through a rigorous sample preparation procedure and by testing different analytical methods, I will firstly develop a methodological and analytical protocol that optimises the analyses of Hg in crystalline rocks. Such protocol will then be used to investigate the Hg content in carefully selected rocks from the SMS, from the uncontaminated and undegassed magmatic rocks to the metamorphic rocks of the crust in which they emplaced and the volcanics erupted to the surface. This will be combined with petrography and major and trace element geochemistry of the same samples, in order to quantify the gain or loss of Hg in magmas during assimilation, crystallisation and degassing in a continental setting. Project STECALMY will produce the first methodologically-robust model on the source and mobility of Hg within a continental magmatic system.

During the years it has been shown that the problem of the environmental impact due to the dispersion in the environment of organic materials recalcitrant to biodegradation (e.g. plastics, lubricants) can only be partially solved by collection and recycling strategies. In this respect, studies are needed that provide effective solutions, embracing the entire life cycle of the material, starting from its design, up to its "end of life". Thus, The RenEcoPol project aim is to develop alternative routes for recyclable polyester synthesis based on biobased building blocks using green processes such as biocatalysis. RenEcoPol first develops a strategy for the selection of monomers from renewable sources completed by a selection of the green catalysts for synthesis of polyesters possible candidates for different applications ranging from packaging to high performance materials. The new biobased polyesters will be characterized in detail by several analytical techniques for structure confirmation and assessment of the physico-chemical properties. In the third step the biodegradability in different natural and synthetic conditions of the synthesized materials will be evaluated and in the last step the development of a strategy for the recoverment of the components will be performed. Following all the steps the compliance to bioeconomy and circular economy criteria will be demonstarted. The RenEcoPol project will familiarize the researcher with bioinformatics, marine biotechnology and will promote her development as independent researcher and facilitate the acquisition of a stable research position in Europe.