POLYTE-EID European Industrial Doctorate will offer excellent training opportunities to 3 Early Stage Researchers in the area of Polymers for Electrochemical Energy Storage. POLYTE-EID puts together the expertise in batteries for automotive of Toyota Motor Europe (TME) with the academic excellence in polymers of the University of the Basque Country (POLYMAT). The final objective is to train scientists who may face some of the upcoming European energy and transportation challenges. The project proposal is a well-balanced combination of fundamental material&polymer science with applied research in electrochemical energy storage technologies. The project will search the development of new polymeric materials to increase the performance and security of actual and future batteries.

This project is a feasibility study aimed at establishing the viability of a new class of material for hydrogen storage namely pillared nanographites. One of the more challenging problems in energy research is to find a compact, safe and lightweight alternative to petroleum that has similar energy densities. There are a large number of different potential solutions to this problem, but the use of hydrogen has interesting possibilities in that it promises a clean, efficient and quiet form of energy storage. We believe that we have identified a new class of materials, pillared nanographites, that will be able to satisfy this need and are also cheap and environmentally friendly (recyclable). The hydrogen absorption properties of these materials are highly tuneable via control of the interlayer spacing, the concentration and type of intercalant, the surface charge, and nano-scale texture. Furthermore, our compounds are cheap, recyclable and environmentally friendly (they do not contain toxic heavy metals). We would therefore like to request funds for an exploratory study that will establish the feasibility or otherwise of these materials. Although it is quite speculative in nature, this project has strong support from Toyota Motors.

This collaboration will open an adventurous new application for quantum sensing with wide reaching applications in the environmental sciences. We are aiming for improving the reference frame used by researchers in climate science to allow higher precision climate data to be collected, better models to be made and improved evidence for political decisions to be generated. As stated by the UN: "The Global Geodetic Reference Frame (GGRF) is the foundation for evidence-based policies and decisions, it underpins the collection and management of nationally integrated geospatial information and is used to monitor our dynamic Earth. Thus, the GGRF has direct societal relevance." This is the pivotal element we are targeting in this project. In more detail, we are using the latest developments in quantum sensors and perform research into making them sufficiently robust to achieve world-record precision inside the UK Space Geodesy Facility in Herstmonceux. In parallel we will research into the tools to use the continuous stream of precise gravity data from the quantum sensor to better understand the tide models and other effects influencing the measurements defining our geodetic reference frames.

During this Fellowship, I intend to develop a multi-scale approach that, revealing the structure-relaxation dynamics correlation over a wide time- and length-scale, will direct the design of smart membranes with customised functionalities (while providing a fundamental understanding of commercially available materials). My methodology addressing the microstructure/processing/performance triangle aims to facilitate the transition from theoretical properties to practical applications in materials designed for energy conversion applications and separation science (while it can be extended to biomedical applications). I intend to develop my research at UCL Chemistry, which provides the ideal scientific framework enabling close collaborations with Physical Sciences and Engineering Departments.

This project is a feasibility study aimed at establishing the viability of a new class of material for hydrogen storage namely pillared nanographites. One of the more challenging problems in energy research is to find a compact, safe and lightweight alternative to petroleum that has similar energy densities. There are a large number of different potential solutions to this problem, but the use of hydrogen has interesting possibilities in that it promises a clean, efficient and quiet form of energy storage. We believe that we have identified a new class of materials, pillared nanographites, that will be able to satisfy this need and are also cheap and environmentally friendly (recyclable). The hydrogen absorption properties of these materials are highly tuneable via control of the interlayer spacing, the concentration and type of intercalant, the surface charge, and nano-scale texture. Furthermore, our compounds are cheap, recyclable and environmentally friendly (they do not contain toxic heavy metals). We would therefore like to request funds for an exploratory study that will establish the feasibility or otherwise of these materials. Although it is quite speculative in nature, this project has strong support from Toyota Motors.