Project description
Building safer, smarter materials for nuclear energy
Nuclear energy remains one of the most reliable and low-carbon power sources, providing nearly 20 % of electricity. However, as Europe’s nuclear fleet ages, understanding how reactor materials degrade is becoming increasingly urgent. The ERC-funded URANUS project aims to develop an element-resolved electrochemistry setup to study how each alloying element behaves in harsh environments such as concentrated nitric acid and molten salts. The database will power AI-driven materials design, helping engineers create stronger, longer-lasting reactor components and ensuring nuclear energy remains a stable pillar of Europe’s clean-energy future.
Objective
Evaluating and fabricating sustainable materials for the energy sector is crucial in addressing the current energy crisis and climate change. Despite safety and sustainability concerns, especially as the early generations of nuclear power plants (NPP) near the end of their operational lifespans, NPPs produce almost one-fifth of the world’s electrical energy. However, controlling material degradation and reprocessing issues in NPPs remains surprisingly understudied due to the extreme operating conditions. Up to 95% of uranium from spent nuclear fuel can be recycled through reprocessing in concentrated nitric acid at temperatures exceeding 100°C, although the underlying mechanisms and the role of alloying elements in the fuel container are not yet well understood.
Electrochemical methods have been applied in these extreme electrolytes to investigate materials degradation mechanisms providing in situ global responses. However, these methods are limited as they rely on assumptions developed in aqueous media and do not provide direct, element-specific information, necessitating complementary ex situ surface characterizations. To bridge the gap, the URANUS project will develop a novel element-resolved electrochemistry setup for extreme electrolytes, leveraging the unique expertise of the PI in this field.
Element-by-element degradation mechanisms of metallic materials in concentrated nitric acid will be elucidated for the first time, tracking the fate of each alloying element. Other non-aqueous electrolytes including molten salt systems will also be investigated with this approach. This will open new avenues for controlling the corrosion of materials in the energy sector. The unique element-resolved database generated from this project will serve as input parameters for training machine learning models aimed at efficiently discovering optimal alloys in specific environments, thereby reducing the consumption of raw and scarce materials during the materials design process.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences electrochemistry
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels
You need to log in or register to use this function
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
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.
75006 Paris
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.