The Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM) of the Universitat Jaume I obtains new research projects worth 1.75 million euros

Recently, the International Advisory Committee of the Institute of Advanced Materials of the Universitat Jaume I has carried out the biannual evaluation of the Institut INAM. One part met in person before lockdown (Professors James Durrant, Laura Lechuga and Miquel A. Pericàs) and the other members of the committee (Prof. Elizabeth von Hauff, Thuc-Quyen Nguyen and Luís Oro) met by teleconference. Following a joint discussion on the Institute's biennial report for the period 2018-2019 (which will be made public in September), committee members discussed the main aspects of the organization and scientific performance of the Institute with the director, Professor Juan Bisquert, and the scientific staff of the INAM. The committee in its final report has ruled that the Institute of Advanced Materials has achieved, in the short period of time since its creation in 2015, a very important degree of development of the scientific proposal of lines of research in the fields of advanced materials, energy, optoelectronics and catalysis. This represents a real progress towards the objective of the Institute expressed in its vision:
"Achieve a world-class research center on understanding and creating materials, providing scientific knowledge and producing advanced applications for a better future."
In relation to the progress and expansion of the composition and objectives, the INAM, which has just celebrated 5 years since its creation by the Generalitat Valenciana, has obtained in recent months a great boost in terms of projects of competitive research for a total amount of 1.75 million euros that will form the basis for the expansion of research areas and consolidation of new topics.
At the Valencian level, the achievement of large infrastructure projects and knowledge transfer to the production system stands out. First of all, the Generalitat Valenciana in the IDIFEDER 2020/2021 call has awarded the project "Functional coatings for technological applications" for 898,529 euros to an INAM team led by Juan Bisquert in cooperation with the Institute of Ceramic Technology. This project aims to develop functional coating preparation and characterization techniques that allow the deposition of a wide range of materials, on a wide range of substrates, including flexible systems, with a controlled architecture, which will allow access to a large number of technological applications, in addition to facilitating the approach of the developments in laboratory to systems closer to the commercialization and therefore transferable to the industry. From simpler techniques such as "spin coating" to more sophisticated techniques closer to industrial application such as jet printing, direct ink writing, evaporation and sputtering. These techniques, as well as the combination of them, in controlled conditions, for example in inert atmosphere, will allow the development of multilayer functionalized systems with 3D structure for the manufacture of optoelectronic devices, biological, molecular materials, catalytic, etc. applicable to large area and flexible substrates. It will also have advanced equipment to characterize the structures and functionalized surfaces that are developed, with in-situ methods such as high-resolution optical microscopy.
These instruments will consolidate INAM’s focus on a combination of global impact research activities and knowledge transfer in the immediate environment. This vision is realized with the renewal of the project “Scientific Unit of Business Innovation UCIE-INAM”, formed by a team of INAM directed by Juan Bisquert and financed with 250,000 euros. The project is funded by the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI) which is considered the meeting point for all the agents that are part of the Valencian Innovation System. The aim of the UCIE-INAM is to convert the knowledge resulting from the Institute's research into innovations that can be used by companies, as well as the deployment of the necessary actions to facilitate the effective transfer of collaboration in R + D + I projects with companies, staff exchanges and other forms of knowledge management created by INAM. Likewise, the innovations developed will be widely disseminated by the INAM. This project will take shape in the coming weeks with the signing of a cooperation agreement.
Finally, in this new batch of projects with which the Generalitat Valenciana supports INAM, the Ministry of Innovation, Science, University and Digital Society has awarded a grant from the Santiago Grisolia program to researcher Eduardo Peris. The aim of these scholarships is to train qualified staff for R&D tasks and is aimed at university graduates from non-Spanish universities within the corresponding field of research. The three-year research program will form supramolecular coordination complexes for the selective recognition of organic substrates and for the preparation of new homogeneous supramolecular catalysts.
On the other hand, the previous week the call for research projects of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities in Spain was resolved. In this call, INAM researchers have obtained two projects with a total funding of around 0.5 million euros for three years.
The projects are: "Stable hybrid perovskites for dimensional control and interfaces", led by Juan Bisquert and Germán García Belmonte, file PID2019-107348GB-100 and total budget of 254,000 euros, and "New halide perovskites obtained by stabilizing the perovskite phase through surface energy for advanced optoelectronic devices ”, directed by Iván Mora Seró and Beatriz Julián López, file PID2019-107314RB-100, total budget 242,000 euros.
The two projects are aimed at different aspects of perovskite hybrid solar cells, which is a very promising field of research in the development of a new photovoltaic technology, and a central topic of interest in semiconductors and materials science. The outstanding properties of hybrid perovskites allow the production of solar energy on a large scale in photovoltaic cells and, in addition, taking advantage of the ideal characteristics of conversion of light to energy and versatile charge transport, other important provisions can be made such as to light sensors, photoelectrocatalytic transducers for the generation of fuels from sunlight and electronic memories.
The project "Stable hybrid perovskites" will apply tools of synthesis, device creation and advanced characterization to provide a much-needed knowledge of the interaction between the fundamental composition, the combination of morphologies and the transport of electrical charges to improve specific functionalities and to obtain acceptable stabilities in the environment in hybrid perovskites, that are key elements for his practical application. On the other hand, the project "New halide perovskites" aims to promote a breakthrough in the manipulation of the crystal structure of perovskite by controlling surface energy using two original approaches: the growth of nanoparticles and a new method to add embedded quantum dots.
These new projects, together with a large number of European projects that are in the execution phase, consolidate INAM as a reference research center for the coming years, in the search for advanced materials both in the purely scientific field, moved by curiosity about knowledge and discovery, as in the application and return of society's investment, in the production of new ideas that help to transform the productive model of Valencian society to one of greater intensification of knowledge and leading technologies, with an impact on the global market.