SusMatEner · Sustainable Materials-by-Design For Renewable Energy

Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity. The current geopolitical crises underline the primordial importance of the development of renewable enClimate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity. The current geopolitical crises underline the primordial importance of the development of renewable energy sources, more efficient, more accessible and more environment-friendly. To reach such an ambitious goal, it is necessary to improve current technologies, in which advanced materials play a key role. To achieve this goal, innovative research must be carried out by a new generation of materials scientists trained to face the scientific, technical, economic and societal challenges in the field of energy. This is the ambition of the “Sustainable Materials-By-Design for Renewable Energy” (SusMatEner) project by training 15 Doctoral Candidates to become future research leaders, innovators and decision makers in Materials Science. An original and sound interdisciplinary training has been set up with expertises in Solid State Chemistry and Physics, Theory, Modelling and Engineering, integrating Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning (AI/ML), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Criticality Assessment (CA) and Materials Circularity Indicators (MCI).This strategy will allow us to include environmental, economic and even political factors in 3 specific risky research topics from Proof of Concept TRL3 to Technology Development TRL5-6 in: (1) Solar energy management: photovoltaic and Low thermal emissivity, (2) Electrochemical conversion and storage, (3) Nanostructured materials exploiting complementary know-how and synergies. SusMatEner consortium brings together 5 Academic partners, 1 Research & Technology Organization, 7 SMEs, 2 Start-ups and 3 large companies, offering large and sound from 7 countries. Thanks to secondment periods offered by the industry partners, all DCs will also benefit from an international and intersectoral training environment.