Engineering optoelectronic INterfaces: a global action intersecting FUndamental conceptS and technology implementatION of self-organized organic materials

Project Information

INFUSION

Grant agreement ID: 734834

DOI

10.3030/734834

Project closed

EC signature date 18 November 2016

Start date 1 January 2017

End date 31 August 2022

Funded under

EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 1 237 500,00

EU contribution

€ 1 237 500,00

1 237 500,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TRIESTE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INFUSION (Engineering optoelectronic INterfaces: a global action intersecting FUndamental conceptS and technology implementatION of self-organized organic materials)

Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2022-08-31

Investing in energy efficiency and saving is crucial to support energy accessibility and environmental protection, and it is the world’s best interest to share and implement forms of energy efficiency. This implies a stronger and effective transnational policy to promote and disseminate know-how about new technologies both at the market and R&D level. In this respect, development of projects centered on energy efficient technologies based on nanostructured organic materials certainly is a strategic field. The progresses in mastering organic matter by self-assembly and selforganization to form ordered soft-materials revolutionized the field opening new frontiers for both fundamental and applied research. However the route towards organic materials for application at the industrial scale is restricted by difficulties in the control and manipulation of the structural organization at the molecular level and its manifestation at higher scales. Motivated by the potential for significant energy savings, the INFUSION project aims to create a strongly interdisciplinary and inter-sectorial environment in which the principles of self-organization are poured from the Academia into the private sector and vice-versa to create new paradigms to engineer electrochromic devices.
The project aims at cross-fertilize the electrochromic technology joining specific expertise to realize a bottom-up approach toward the design, preparation and characterization of self-organized organic materials (chromophores, CNSs, polymers...) at different interfaces (ITO, graphene) and exhibiting superior performances (optical, durability…). For the transfer of knowledge, the project combines the multidisciplinary expertise in the field of organic chemistry, photochemistry, surface science, polymer and materials science, and device engineering.

Despite the spread of the Corona Virus COVID-19 SARS-CoV2, which mainly limited the activities related to travels, the scientific deliverables (WP1 and 2) and generally speaking the overall trend of the project went smoothly, and adapted to the scheduled plan, also thanks to the amendments that allowed an extension. General activities of Training, Dissemination/Communication and Management (WP 3-5) went well considering the global situation.Thanks to the amendment of the duration of the project, it was possible to avoid major deviations from the foreseen results. Up to August (M68) the consortium has implemented in total 265.87 person-month (PMs) whereas according to their secondment plan by end of the project was expected to have implemented 275 PMs planned in DoA, with a 96.68 % rate of implementation.

The INFUSION School of "Electrochemistry, Photochemistry and Photophysics of Organic, Inorganic and Hybrid Materials" was co-organized in joint collaboration with another European project, the NOAH ITN project. It was a great success with 150 registered participants.

As regards DISSEMINATION, key aspects of the project and important questions at the heart of INFUSION research were illustrated by original info-graphics posted on the INFUSION website where they will remain for several years. The motivation was (1) to maximize the online reach of the project; (2) to offer researchers tools of communication; (3) to introduce researchers and PhD students involved in the project to new compelling ways of communicating research and engaging public opinion. The infographics files were uploaded in an open-data repository. 46 files are stored in a server of UNamur where they content can be downloaded freely by the interested users. A link to this repository has been created on the home page of the INFUSION web site. The repository will survive the duration of the INFUSION project.

The consortium has been very active in the communication of results to the scientific community. Up to now the number of publications in international scientific journal amounted to 47. Most of the papers published with acknowledgement to INFUSION have an open access, with immediate effect after publication for more than half of them. An embargo of 6 or 12 months after publications applied to the other. 36 publications have been uploaded of the OpenAire platform Zenodo under a so-called community named “Infusion” created in June 2018. Some papers have been highlighted by the editor of the journal they were published in. Some others made the cover page of the journal.

In an era of globalization and high competition the role and the future of the European industrial sector is strongly correlated to the degree of innovation that we will be able to implement in products and processes. This scenario calls for a strong and reinforced collaboration between top-level research groups in academia and research centers and dynamic companies in fields with high potential of innovation and INFUSION did this: it created a strong interactive and collaborative network between research centers, highly innovative and dynamic SMEs active in the field of nanostructured organic surfaces with application in innovative optoelectronic devices.

The scientific achievements obtained during INFUSION project address many problems and offer solutions to some limitations of the electrochromic materials available on the market as:
Color palette: different materials have been develop and small structural modifications allowed to obtain green, pink, cyan, blue…
Higher contrast between the two colors (or the not colored status and the colored one) without affecting the tone of the color
Lower time of response: the time in which the material changes its color when the voltage is applied has been decrease and reach the order of milliseconds
Durability: some of the produced devices showed stable characteristics also after 100000 color reversion (cycle)
Spontaneous aggregation: the assembly of the molecules in macrostructures as film, nanoparticles, fibers allowed to study the different behaviour of these materials, obtaining better results in the preparation of ECDs. New entities can aggregate in an ordered manner thanks to their interactions with other molecules
Green practices: some devices have been prepared dispersing the electrochromic materials in water and using this dispersion to prepare the active surfaces, replacing toxic and expensive solvents..

These goals are the results of strong efforts, good interactions and collaborations between the partners and allowed to prepare new inks for the construction of ECDs which overcome most of the problems highlighted above. These technological improvements will have a strong impact in the field of ECDs production and commercialization allowing to produce devices more efficient, durable and safe with a consequent development of the SME already involved and the foreseeable start-up of new ones. This can start a self-incrementing cycle, which will push the use of ECDs even further. Taking in account that the energy consumption of an ECD is minimal, this scenario will also ensure a considerable energy saving.

Imagine of a prototype using electrochromic display with 10 layers of P3HT, simulating INFUSION ́s

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INFUSION (Engineering optoelectronic INterfaces: a global action intersecting FUndamental conceptS and technology implementatION of self-organized organic materials)

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