NEST

Network 4 Energy Sustainable Transition – NEST

Principal Investigator: Alessandra Sanson
Involved Personnel: Andrea Brigliadori, Stefano Nejrotti
Starting date: 01/11/2022
Duration: 36 months
Total Funding: 327 000,00 €
Call: PIANO NAZIONALE DI RIPRESA E RESILIENZA (PNRR) Missione 4 “Istruzione e ricerca” – Componente C2 “Dalla ricerca all’impresa”, Investimento 1.3 “Partenariati estesi a Università, centri di ricerca, imprese e finanziamento progetti di ricerca”, tematica “Scenari Energetici del futuro”, sotto-tematica 2.a “Energie verdi del futuro”. Finanziato dall’Unione Europea – NextGenerationEU – D.D. 1243 del 02/08/2022.
CNR-ISSMC Role: Partner
Project Coordinator: NEST foundation
Consortium: Politecnico di Torino, Politecnico di Milano, Università di Genova, Università degli Studi di Padova, Università di Bologna, Università di Pisa, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Politecnico di Bari, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, CNR, ENEA, Eurac Research, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, IIT, Engineering, Arco Technologies, Exprivia, Intesa San Paolo, SNAM, Idea75, Iren, Nuovo Pignone

NEST has the primary mission of building a competent Italian leadership, consistent with the existing excellence of its partners and affiliates within the Foundation, capable of supporting the growth of new generations of energy technologies, researchers, research infrastructures, businesses, and startups, for a future sustainable and resilient energy sector.
The partnership consists of nine spokes. CNR-ISSMC is involved in Spoke 9, “Energy-sustainable advanced materials”, whose main goal is to develop advanced materials and technologies capable of improving the efficiency of the devices, reducing their carbon footprint, and offering environmental and economic benefits for energy applications. To achieve this goal, activities include the development of materials with controlled and optimized composition, structure, and morphology, improving their functional properties and extending the device’s lifespan.
Specifically, the activity involves the development of functional materials for applications in solid oxide fuel cells, membranes, and catalysis through the exsolution of metallic nanoparticles on oxide supports. Additionally, anti-perovskite structured materials with ferroelectric properties for photoelectrochemical applications will be synthesized. Particular attention is given to the development of green synthetic protocols, to enhance sustainability and reduce the environmental impact of processes. In this regard, the activity also involves the study of sustainable solvents for stable and efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC).
Furthermore, advanced chemical, (photo)electrochemical, structural, morphological, and functional characterization techniques will be implemented to improve the performance and innovation of materials and develop in-operando testing methods.