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Controlling Colloidal Gels for Novel Sustainable Materials

Project description

Advancing sustainable colloidal gels for industry

Sustainability is a growing demand across various industries, including construction, energy, consumer care, food, and medicine. A key component in many formulations are colloidal gels. These are complex, out-of-equilibrium soft matter systems. Achieving the desired performance of these gels in products like cement, batteries, and cosmetics requires precise control over composition, interactions, and processing conditions. However, current methods often rely on trial and error due to a limited understanding of how microstructure impacts material properties. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the CoCoGel project will develop rational design strategies for colloidal gels. It brings together academic and industrial partners to advance sustainable materials and processes while empowering researchers to drive sustainability.

Objective

Transformative advances in product formulation are required to meet the demand for sustainability across a wide range of EU-priority industrial areas. Colloidal gels complex, out-of-equilibrium soft matter systems are core components in many of the formulations encountered therein, including building materials (e.g. cement), energy materials (e.g. batteries and fuel cells), consumer care and food products, and medicine. Current industrial practice requires delicate balancing between thermodynamic parameters (composition and interactions), quenching kinetics, and processing conditions to achieve gel structures with the desired material performance (e.g. mechanical, thermal, or electrical properties). Without a robust physical understanding of how the microstructure can be controlled and how this links to material properties, this balancing remains limited to trial and error. Recent advances in colloidal-gel physics strongly imply that the rational design of colloidal gel properties is within reach. This design is based on tuning gel microstructure via external stimuli, such as shear, ultrasound, and (magnetic/electric) fields, and the addition of non-Brownian inclusions. The CoCoGel doctoral network will enable the translation from the current academic state of the art to industrial practice, focusing on these routes to controlling microstructure. We will bring together 6 academic and 6 industrial partners experts in a range of experimental, computational, and theoretical techniques who can realize the creation of new sustainable materials and production processes via these routes. Key to the success of our industrial doctoral training network is a deepening and extending of existing collaborations, as well as the training of a new generation of researchers with both multi-disciplinary expertise in soft materials and practical experience engaging with industry. These will drive further sustainable development over a wide range of European industries.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN-ID - HORIZON TMA MSCA Doctoral Networks - Industrial Doctorates

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2022-DN-01

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Coordinator

IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 720 295,20
Address
N PLASTIRA STR 100
70 013 IRAKLEIO
Greece

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Νησιά Αιγαίου Κρήτη Ηράκλειο
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Participants (10)

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