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EMILIE – ESTABLISHING A NEW PARADIGM IN NANOMATERIALS CHARACTERIZATION

Project description

Steps to advance nanoparticle analysis

Nanotechnologies are transforming industries like medicine, agriculture, and cosmetics, but progress is held back by a lack of advanced tools to analyse tiny particles. Without these tools, only a few nanomedicines have reached the market, and factories lose money due to undetected contaminants. Moreover, dangerous nano-pollutants, such as tiny aerosols and nanoplastics, go unregulated, causing serious health issues, including cancer and obesity, and contributing to 500 000 deaths yearly in the EU. The need for better nanoparticle analysis is urgent. To address this issue, the EIC-funded EMILIE project has created an innovative infrared (IR) analyser using nano-electromechanical sensing technology. It makes nanoparticle analysis faster, more accurate, and affordable, opening new opportunities in healthcare, environmental protection, and industry.

Objective

Nanotechnologies have had a major role to play in the modernization and revolution of many industries such as agriculture, food, cosmetics, medicine, healthcare, automotive, oil and gas industries, chemical, and mechanical industries. However, the development of scientific instrumentation capable of handling such small samples and characterizing them has been lagging. As a result, very few nanomedicines have been commercialized so far due in part to the challenges in their characterization, semiconductor fabs and chemical suppliers suffer yield reductions and profit losses due to unidentified nanoscale contaminants, and unfortunately, nanopollutants, such as airborne aerosols with sizes smaller than 2.5 m and nanoplastics remain unregulated for lack of effective routine monitoring technologies, resulting in unnecessary deaths (500,000 yearly deaths in the EU caused by air pollution alone), increased diseases (nanoplastics have been linked to cancer, obesity, diabetes,) and hundreds of billions of euros in associated healthcare costs. There exists a current pressing need to fill the technological gap in the analysis of nanoparticles. During the NEMILIES EIC Transition project, we developed EMILIE, an innovative infrared (IR) analyser based on groundbreaking nanoelectromechanical sensing (NEMS) technology which pushes the boundaries of traditional Fourier transform IR (FTIR) spectroscopy. By significantly enhancing the sensitivity of traditional FTIRs and cutting down analysis times as well as instrument acquisition costs, EMILIE opens an array of new possibilities in nanomaterials characterization, paving the way to breakthroughs in environmental monitoring, nanomedicines, and more. However, several barriers must still be overcome to commercialise EMILIE and fully realise its potential. The objective of this booster project is to open the pathway to the commercialisation of EMILIE by addressing standardization, regulation, and intellectual property issues.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-CSA - HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2024-BOOSTER-IBA-01

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Coordinator

INVISIBLE-LIGHT LABS GMBH
Net EU contribution
€ 50 000,00
Address
TAUBSTUMMENGASSE 11
1040 Wien
Austria
SME
Yes
Region
Ostösterreich Wien Wien
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost
No data