ERC Advanced Grant for René Janssen, Marc Geers and Joost Reek
FOM workgroup leaders professor René Janssen (TU/e), professor Marc Geers and professor Joost Reek (UvA) have been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). They will each receive a grant of 2,5 million euros for their research proposals 'Mechanical metamaterials' (Geers), 'Converting solar energy efficiently' (Janssen) and 'Nature inspired transition metal catalysis' (Reek).
Mechanical metamaterials
Marc Geers (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering), former member of FOM's Governing Board, will together with his research group 'Mechanics of Materials' focus on a new, revolutionary method to analyse and predict the mechanical behaviour of materials at different length scales (multiscale). This will, for example, make it easier to effectively investigate the behaviour of damaged materials. In addition, Geers hopes to open up the way to a new generation of mechanical metamaterials with his research. These are very unusual materials with properties that do not occur in nature. With his multiscale approach new, so-called non-linear, types of mechanical metamaterials can be developed. He wants to produce a 'proof-of-principle' metamaterial that provides highly efficient acoustic damping.
Converting solar energy efficiently
The project of René Janssen (Applied Physics/Chemical Engineering) and his group 'Molecular Materials and Nanosystems' concerns the investigation and development of new principles for converting solar energy into electricity and fuels. For this he uses organic semiconductors and the simultaneous conversion of multiple photons in a process similar to natural photosynthesis. The aim of the project is to achieve efficient solar energy conversion using low-cost and abundant materials, thereby contributing to the use of solar energy.
Nature inspired transition metal catalysis
With the Advanced Grant of the European Research Coucil, Joost Reek (Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences) wants to develop new ways to enhance the activity and selectivity of transition metal catalysts. Such metal complexes currently play an important role in the chemical industry as they facilitate the sustainable production of chemicals in bulk as well as in the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. Reek proposes to design and synthesize novel transition metal catalysts embedded in nature inspired synthetic cages, in order to get a better grip on the catalytic reaction. An important part will be devoted to the development of catalyst for water oxidation, and for proton and nitrogen reduction reactions, which are relevant for the development of solar to fuel devices.
ERC Advanced Grant
The ERC Advanced Grant is awarded to outstanding individual researchers for advanced, groundbreaking projects that open up new avenue in their field of research or other domains. The European Research Council receives thousands of applications each year of which only a few hundred are awarded funding.