Erik Franco – Pagina 11 – Progress in Research

Researchers from the Department of Energy in Tunis

Posted on 22/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Researchers from the SESAM group (Sustainable Energy Systems Analysis and Modelling) of the Department of Energy of the Politecnico di Milano held a workshop on “Science Diplomacy and Evidence-Based Policymaking” in Tunis on 26 October, followed by a three-day technical training addressed to members of a Tunisian consortium for energy-economy modeling as well as faculty members and students of the National Engineering School of Tunis (ENIT).

The activity, which involved SESAM researchers Diana Shendrikova, Francesco Tonini and Giacomo Crevani, coordinated by Prof. Matteo Vincenzo Rocco, was conducted within the framework of the project “DIAPOL-CE – Policy Dialogue and Knowledge Management on Low Emission Development Strategies”, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and implemented Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

DIAPOL-CE assists policymakers in building national energy and low-emission development strategies on the best available knowledge and strengthens the link between decision-makers and academia in countries of Western Asia and Africa.

ANSELMUS: safety assessment of heavy liquid metal cooled nuclear systems

Posted on 18/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano is one of the partners of ANSELMUS (Advanced Nuclear Safety Evaluation of Liquid Metal Using Systems), a four-year project funded by the research and training programme of the European Atomic Energy Community EURATOM.

The project aims to significantly contribute to the safety assessment of heavy liquid metal (HLM) cooled nuclear systems, in particular ALFRED and MYRRHA, two experimental lead fast reactor (LFR) projects that combine the advantages of a fast reactor system, which reduces the impact of nuclear waste, with intrinsic safety properties due – among other things – to the high boiling point of lead and its chemical inertness.

The study of innovative technologies that are able to guarantee high standards of efficiency and safety in the field of nuclear energy takes on particular importance in the current energy context. The importance of low-carbon energy sources in the challenge against climate change underlines the importance of the presence of nuclear energy in the European energy mix for a sustainable future.

The contact person for the project for the Politecnico di Milano is Professor Marco Ricotti, professor of nuclear plants; the ANSELMUS project, in addition to the Department of Energy, will also involve that of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering.
The researchers at the Politecnico di Milano will contribute to the project with a technical-economic-financial analysis to assess the possibility that this type of reactor can operate in a modulation of power through cogeneration. The activity will focus on the possible configurations of the Balance of Plant and ancillary systems for the production of hydrogen and energy storage. Economic modelling will be able to estimate the cost of construction and cogeneration for LFR plants by parameterizing these costs to the power of the plant. Furthermore, risks and opportunities from a financial point of view will be identified in order to derive a business model suitable for the development and implementation of this technology.

Uforest: from grey to green

Posted on 18/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

According to the United Nation Department for Economic and Social Affairs, by 2050 68% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. Over the next few years, climate change and urbanisation will be two of the most important challenges our societies have ever faced.

Uforest is a project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission and it aims at promoting Europe’s innovation capacity among universities, cities and businesses to deliver a new approach to Urban Forestry. The project created a cross-sectoral alliance for the development of new training and support for students and professionals working towards innovative urban forestry projects.

Join, learn and green your city!

Urban forests can provide an efficient solution for greener, healthier, and more sustainable cities, but often their implementation faces many barriers. For this reason, facilitating the implementation of urban forestry projects is fundamental.

During the last few months, the Uforest team produced 20 case studies on innovative urban forestry initiatives around Europe and Reports about the theme, such as the “Blueprint for Innovation in Urban Forestry” which provides a comprehensive overview of the main challenges faced by the European urban forestry sector. The aim was to better understand the current framework in which urban forestry projects are implemented and how innovation grows.

Discover more on the project

New laboratories for the design of advanced and sustainable materials

Posted on 15/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The new laboratories for research, innovation and technology transfer of the Politecnico di Milano, developed thanks to the collaboration agreement with Regione Lombardia,have been inaugurated today.

Laboratories are the soul and heart of research. They are structures of excellence that allow our university to position itself among the best in Europe and to grow in our territory by focusing on innovation as a characterising element.

The aim of the laboratories is the design of advanced and sustainable materials at the service of two great challenges for advanced manufacturing: the development of new solutions for 3D printing in the biomedical field and the study of innovative solutions for energy storage in support of energy transition. The laboratories are among the most advanced infrastructures in Europe for the study of nanomaterials, thanks to the installation of one of the first 3D bioprinting systems in the world for vascularised tissues and state-of-the-art X-ray labs.

Lombardy, one of the four engines of Europe, invests in development looking ahead to great challenges such as advanced materials, which represents an essential advantage for the growth of the manufacturing industry. This agreement further strenghten the collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and Regione Lombardia, which represents a solid understanding on cutting-edge issues.
Prof. Donatella Sciuto, Deputy Vice Rector of Politecnico di Milano with responsibility for Research and Rector elected for the six-year term 2023/2028.

Within the laboratories it will be possible to design advanced, innovative and sustainable materials through the so-called Crystal Engineering, namely an investigation on the crystalline structure at the service of optimising the properties of advanced materials, which are relevant for the most advanced technological applications. Specifically, the laboratories are specialised in 3D bioprint and in electrochemical technologies for energy storage.

With this intervention, which Regione Lombardia has supported with 1.7 million Euros, we have given our university system the opportunity to equip itself with cutting-edge equipment and unique technologies in Europe. Thanks to it, we can compete with the best international research centres.
Fabrizio Sala, Vice-President of Regione Lombardia.

Bioimaging, high-resolution images for analysis of cellular phenomena

Posted on 11/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Giorgia Tortora, PhD student of the second year, and her Supervisor, Professor Andrea Bassi, from the Department of Physics of the Politecnico di Milano have been awarded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative(CZI), a California philanthropy that supports research for the advancement of bioimaging technologies.

Both the award-winning projects provide for the improvement and expansion of new functionalities of the software already created by our researchers in the biological field, allowing a significant advancement of bioimaging technologies: the aim is to facilitate the development of new microscopy techniques and optical nanoscopy by reconstructing high-resolution images (even beyond the diffraction limit of light). The software can be used for the analysis of cellular and biological dynamic phenomena.

The software will be freely available (open source), in the form of plugins on the napari platform, created with Python code, which allows scientists to view and analyze multidimensional images in an effective and intuitive way even without having previous knowledge in the field of software writing. Development will focus on ensuring the quality of existing plugins by improving documentation, user support, usability, and reliability, and adding new key features for cell biology analysis.

The project by Giorgia Tortora

The project by Andrea Bassi

New ways of creating chemical bonds for increasingly complex molecules

Posted on 10/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

A study published recently in Nature Chemistry that combines experimental measurements and theoretical simulations has highlighted a new class of chemical reactions whose speed is controlled by quantum phenomena. Study participants included researchers from the Politecnico di Milano and also from the Universty of Perugia, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and the University of Bologna.

The discovery can be explained by these images:

If we imagine a chemical reaction as a pathway that must be travelled in order to go from reactants to products (figure 1), it is reasonable to expect that the reaction will occur if the reactants have sufficient energy to overcome the energy bottleneck (barrier) separating the reactants and the products (top), and that it won’t occur if the energy is insufficient (bottom).

Through the reaction mechanism discovered in this study, we can bypass the barrier even when the reactant’s energy is low, by means of a quantum leap onto a parallel reactive pathway with a lower barrier. The mechanism that enables this reaction is of a quantum nature and is known as spin inversion (figure 2).

The class of reactions studied, known as spin-forbidden, is difficult to approach because it requires the use of advanced calculation methods.

Evidence of the existence of this new reactive pathway, significant around and below room temperature, will allow us both to identify certain active reaction pathways in astrochemical and biological environments that have hitherto been difficult to understand, and to design new chemical synthesis pathways.

In fact, the proposed reactive pathway allows us to conceive new methods for creating chemical bonds between different reactants and can thus be added to the chemist’s toolbox for constructing increasingly complex molecules.

Using new theoretical and computational tools developed by teams in Milan, Pisa and Bologna, we were able to reproduce the experimental data measured by our colleagues in Perugia, demonstrating for the first time that, for a particular reactant system, the addition of oxygen to nitrogen compounds, the proposed mechanism is active.
Carlo Cavallotti, professor at the Politecnico di Milano and author of the study

LUMIO mission: Politecnico leads phase B

Posted on 07/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Politecnico di Milano and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed the contract for the development of the Phase B study of the LUMIO mission (Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer). After a successful Phase A carried out in 2020-2021, the Phase B has been kicked off on September 28th, 2022, and will last 12 months.

The study will be led by the DART group at the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, and has the objective of consolidating the mission design and the CubeSat platform/payload design.

LUMIO is framed within ESA’s GSTP, and has received support from the national delegations of Italy (ASI) and Norway (NOSA).

The European consortium for the LUMIO mission is constituted by Politecnico di Milano, Argotec, Leonardo, IMT, Nautilus, and S&T Norway.

Our university is leading the consortium and will be responsible for the LUMIO mission analysis, guidance, navigation, and control system, autonomous navigation experiment, scientific elaboration of mission data, and the management of the project.

Argotec will lead the CubeSat system design, Leonardo will be responsible for the LUMIO-Cam payload design, IMT will develop the X-band transponder and the solar array drive mechanism, and Nautilus will design the ground segment and the flight dynamics operations. Moreover, S&T Norway will be responsible for the on-board payload data processing unit design to process the data gathered by the LUMIO-Cam.

LUMIO is a 12 units CubeSat, which means that it has a dimension of approximately 20x20x30 cm with a mass of around 25 kg. The miniaturized satellite will fly on a sophisticated orbit about the lagrangian point L2 of the Earth-Moon system.

The objective is monitoring the far side of the Moon to detect light flashes associated to meteoroid impacts. This is to complement data gathered by Earth-based observatories and to refine the meteoroid flux models hitting the Earth-Moon system. The high frame-rate images acquired by the LUMIO-Cam will be processed in real time and onboard to detect the light flashes due to the impacts and they will be downloaded on ground for further elaboration.

What role is there for nuclear power in the decarbonisation process?

Posted on 03/11/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano is a partner in the ECOSENS (Economic and Social Considerations for the Future of Nuclear Energy in Society) project funded under the research and training programme of the European Community HORIZON-EURATOM.

The project aims to analyse citizens’ opinions and perceptions of risk, the benefits and potential related to the use of nuclear technologies (current and future) in relation to the main social challenges: climate crisis, sustainable energy policies and energy security.

In order to identify the possible role of nuclear energy within the decarbonisation objectives set for 2050, the sustainability of current technologies and the integration of new generation reactors (III + and IV) will be assessed with reference to the future energy market and social developments taking place.

The Department of Management Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano will be supported by that of Energy in the development of an economic model based on the “system of provision approach” to create and calculate indicators relevant to the evaluation of nuclear systems, including the “social discount rate” (reflecting uncertainties about the socio-environmental costs and benefits of the project) and the impact on sustainability.

The research work will lead to the drafting of guidelines for the evaluation of new nuclear infrastructures with a view to improving their sustainability.

The research group of the Politecnico is coordinated by Professor Giorgio Locatelli of the Department of Management Engineering.

SOS-Water project begins

Posted on 21/10/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Water resources around the globe are under increasing stress. Among other factors, climate change, rising food and energy demand, and improving living standards have led to a six-fold increase in global water withdrawals over the last century, with significant consequences for water quality and availability, ecosystem health, biodiversity, as well as social stability.

The Environmental Intelligent lab of the Politecnico di Milano is part in the SOS-Water Project – Water Resources System Safe Operating Space in a Changing Climate and Society. It will set out the boundaries within which the Earth’s capacity to provide life-support systems for humanity is not endangered, and humanity’s capacity to adapt to environmental changes is not overburdened. Crossing such thresholds or tipping points in the complex Earth system could result in abrupt and irreversible ecological change.

To safeguard a reliable and sufficient water supply for humans and ecosystems in the future, it is therefore essential to define an SOS for global water resources under changing conditions.

By advancing and linking water system models with models from sectors such as agriculture and energy, biodiversity, or sediment transport, the SOS-Water Project aims to lay the foundations for a holistic assessment framework of water resources across spatial scales.

Based on five case studies of river basins in Europe and Vietnam – the Jucar River Basin in Spain, the Upper Danube region, the Danube and Rhine River deltas, and the Mekong River Basin – an interdisciplinary team of researchers will develop a multidimensional SOS for water. The framework will enable the assessment of feedback loops and trade-offs between different dimensions of the water system and help address pressing global, regional, and local challenges.

In addition to going beyond state-of-the-art water systems modeling, the project will develop a comprehensive set of indicators to assess and monitor the environmental, social, and economic performance of water systems.

A strong emphasis will also be put on participatory research and inclusive stakeholder engagement. The participating researchers will collaborate with regional and local authorities, water user representatives, non-governmental organizations, and citizens to co-create future scenarios and water management pathways.

By streamlining water planning at different levels, it can be ensured that water allocation among societies, economies, and ecosystems will be economically efficient, socially fair, and resilient to shocks.

The project consortium consists of ten partners from eight countries in Europe and Asia: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (coordinator), Universiteit Utrecht, Universitat Politècnica de València, Politecnico di Milano Forschungsverbund Berlin E.V., FutureWater, Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Geologie si Geoecologie Marina, Southern Institute for Water Resources Planning Eutema Research Services, Aalborg Universitet Eidgenoessische Anstalt Fuer Wasserversorgung, Abwasserreinigung und Gewaesserchutz. The scientific coordinator for our university is Prof. Andrea Castelletti, of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering.

UN-BIASED project kicks off

Posted on 19/10/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

UN-BIASED (UNcertainty quantification and modelling Bias Inhibition by means of an Agnostic Synergistic Exploitation of multi-fidelity Data) is a research project funded by the European Union within the Horizon Europe Programme. It aims to develop innovative techniques for modelling complex aerodynamic systems, including their aeroacoustic footprint.

A prominent application concerns the investigation of vertical take-off and landing aircraft characterized by unconventional multi-rotor configurations. Striking examples are futuristic aero-taxi currently developed by many start-ups spread worldwide or emergency aerial rescue services to isolated and metropolitan areas.

Currently, the process leading to the establishment of conceptual models for studying such machines largely relies upon the experience gained in investigating helicopters or, more generally, conventional aircraft.

As such, and given the considerable innovation level concerning multi-rotor machines, the modelling process of their aerodynamics and aeroacoustic is strongly biased by preconceived or misleading assumptions due to a lack of specific experience.

The methodology developed thanks to the UN-BIASED project will allow the implementation of a multi-fidelity approach for the analysis and investigation of complex aerodynamic systems.

In particular, the goal is to integrate the modeler’s experience with objective data, from both experimental and numerical studies, in a rigorous manner using machine learning algorithms.

As a result, this novel method will highlight possible inconsistencies between the conceptual models and the observed reality, opening the path for identifying and correcting any modelling bias.

The ultimate objective is optimizing the performance of concept aircraft, including mitigating the noise generated by the propellers, therefore providing new design tools for hastening their certification and commercialization.

The project is coordinated by Prof. Giulio Gori (Principal Investigator), Prof. Luigi Vigevano, and Prof. Alex Zanotti, from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology.