Dr. Alexandru Vlad from MOST Division of the Institute of Condensed Mater and Nanosciences of Université catholique de Louvain (IMCN-UCL) has been very recently awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant, that allocates 2 million € over five years in order to conduct the MOOiRE project.
MOOiRE addresses important challenges in the quest for a sustainable future, since energy storage has become the essential component in a wide range of technologies. The development of new materials and technologies, wherein both anions and cations display reversible and cumulative redox, is bound to impact this field. The project will look at new organic ligand chemistries with reversible and high voltage redox. These will be combined to redox active metal centers (organometallic compounds or metal organic frameworks) and exploit the synergy of cumulative redox processes. But the way these building blocks will combine may either block or enhance the redox processes and a fundamental mechanistic study of these processes will be undertaken.
A milestone of this project is the formulation of hybrid organic-inorganic chemistries and electrodes suitable for accommodating electrolyte ions and charge delocalization during electrochemical processes that would promote reversible multi-electron energy storage. This should enable the fabrication of laboratory prototype cells with enhanced energy density and lower cost than currently available systems. Moreover, it would also provide the insight into novel porous composite materials, sorption, ion exchange and electrocatalysis processes.
The European Research Council has a range of funding schemes amongst which the Consolidator Grant is a highly prestigious one that aims at encouraging talented research leaders to consolidate their research and deliver excellent science.