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The DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) by NASA will be launched on board of a SpaceX Falcon 9 from the Vandenberg base in California. With this probe, NASA will be experimentally testing, for the first time, the possibility of deviating the trajectory of an asteroid that poses a potential threat to the Earth, through controlled impact: DART will, in fact, hit the smaller of the two asteroids in the binary system called Didymos in an attempt to change its orbit.
Fundamental to the success of this mission is the contribution made by the small satellite called LiciaCube (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids), a small all-Italian probe and the first European CubeSat vehicle to travel into deep space, far from the Earth.
The 6U CubeSat (10x20x30xm) will be ejected from DART 10 days before impact with the Dimorphos asteroid. The LiciaCube will then continue in autonomous navigation, with the important task of capturing images of DART and Dimorphos during the impact, of the crater and the fragments generated, enabling essential data to be gathered for the study of this small celestial body and to check the dynamics of the impact.
LiciaCube, the first deep space mission developed and managed by an all-Italian team under the guide of the Italian Space Agency has seen contribution by the researchers in the ASTRA research group headed by Professor Michèle Lavagna, Andrea Capannolo and Giovanni Zanotti, from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano. They were responsible for designing the ejection trajectory and manoeuvring profile that will ensure a correct approach to the celestial body and recording of the cloud of fragments without putting this small satellite at the risk of collision.
The Horizon 2020 project SISCODE (Society in Innovation and Science through CO-Design) saw the involvement of 17 inter-sector partners from around Europe coordinated by the Department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano.
The goal of SISCODE was to explore the use of co-creation processes and tools to involve citizens and other actors in designing more responsible innovation capable of leading to the policy changes requested by society.
More than 150 transverse co-creation case studies in different areas were analysed in the project. Ten pilot projects were also carried out to develop concrete solutions capable of responding to a series of local problems: a new plan to reduce atmospheric pollution, a recycling system to create new products in a circular economy, solutions to fight food waste developed by a collective of local designers, a permanent learning programme to improve active citizenship by elderly people, a new programme on precision agriculture for advanced professional schools, an annual festival dedicated to designing boats to take advantage of the potential of the Tagus River in Lisbon, programmes to improve the mental health of young people by drawing on their hobbies, co-design tools to support public decision-makers, and even cultural performances to explore artificial intelligence with the public.
Milan, in particular, tested BODYSOUND, software created for physical reactivation exercises. Based on dancing and the transformation of movement into sound, it is aimed primarily at children with motor difficulties.
The software underlying this system uses a body-tracking system to calibrate the exercises based on the child’s mobility, monitoring motor coordination and the time and frequency of alignment, recording and comparing the precision and speed of the movements.
The project was conducted within the research activities of Polifactory, an interdepartmental lab at the Politecnico di Milano.
A new study by Politecnico di Milano into the thermo-catalytic activation of CO2 is the cover story of the latest edition of the Catalysis Science and Technology journal by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The article explains the work carried out by Professor Matteo Maestri’s team of the Catalysis and Catalytic Processes Laboratory of the Energy Department.
The document highlights how recycling carbon dioxide by reducing with hydrogen from renewable sources plays an important role in energy transition, to avoid accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and to make it possible to synthesise high-energy-density fuels produced using renewable energy.
Catalysis is fundamental in this process. This review article attempts to fill in the gaps on this question, gathering and rationalising state-of-the-art literature, analysing and suggesting orientation and future challenges regarding the aspects of the catalytic mechanism and multiscale analyses from catalyser to reactor solutions.
The City of Milan with its Neighbourhood Hubs Food Policy project against food waste is the winner in the “A world without waste” section, of the first edition of the international Earthshot Prize for the best solutions to protect the environment, organized by The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
On Sunday October 17th, live on the BBC and Discovery Channel, Prince William unveiled the winners after an international panel of experts selected Milan from 750 candidate initiatives from around the world. In Milan, the BBC arranged a link to London from a terrace overlooking the Duomo, which was attended by Deputy Mayor Anna Scavuzzo, with representatives of all the partners who bring this project to life.
The £1 million prize will be used to further develop the three hubs in the neighbourhoods Isola, Lambrate and Gallaratese, open new ones, ensuring their long-term sustainability, and replicate this excellent practice in the network of cities working with Milan on food policy.
The project was the result of an alliance, in 2017, between the City of Milan, Politecnico di Milano with the research group from the Deaprtment of Management Engineering “Food Sustainability Lab”, of which the Food Sustainability Observatory is part, Assolombarda, Fondazione Cariplo and the QuBì Programme.
The creation of the first Hub then brought in Banco Alimentare della Lombardia and saved over 10 tonnes of food per month, ensuring a stream of 260,000 equivalent meals in one year, reaching 3,800 people, thanks to the contribution of 20 supermarkets, 4 business canteens and 24 Third Sector organisations.
This was followed by the launch of the Hub in Lambrate, immediately after the first lockdown in spring 2020, also managed by Banco Alimentare della Lombardia in a space made available by AVIS Milano and with the support of BCC Milano. The third Hub, at Gallaratese, is managed by Terre des hommes with the support of the Fondazione Milan. Another one, currently in the planning stage, will be the neighbourhood Hub against food waste in Corvetto, managed by the Banco Alimentare della Lombardia and with the support of the Fondazione SNAM; while the Municipality of Milan has recently started the co-design process for the Hub in the city centre with Associazione IBVA and the support of BCC Milano.
The team from the Department of Management Engineering: Alessandro Perego, Marco Melacini, Giulia Bartezzaghi, Annalaura Silvestro and Andrea Rizzuni from the Food Sustainability research group.
Partners involved: The project involves major retailers including Lidl Italia, Esselunga, Carrefour, NaturaSi, Erbert, Coop Lombardia, Il Gigante, Bennet, Penny Market with the support of Number1 Logistics Group who provided the vans for the Isola and Lambrate hubs. With Fondazione Cariplo and SogeMi, The Municipality of Milan has also launched the Foody zero waste initiative to replicate the hub model at Ortomercato and recover fresh food together with Banco Alimentare della Lombardia, Recup, Croce rossa sud milanese, Università degli studi di Milano and many other supporting partners.
The Eni Award ceremony has taken place at the Palazzo del Quirinale in the presence of the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella, of Eni Chairman Lucia Calvosa and of Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi.
The Award, now in its 13th year, is also known as the “Nobel Prize for Energy” and has become an internationally recognised award for research in the energy and environment sectors. The Scientific Commission, which evaluated the applicants’ research, is made up of scientists belonging to the most advanced research institutes in the world and over the years has seen the participation of six Nobel Laureates.
In association with Joule, Eni’s business school, the company this year created an additional award for teams, university spin-offs and start-ups, with a view to encouraging technology use, enhancement and transfer,while promoting the creation of a sustainable innovation ecosystem.
One of the projects awarded with this important prize is Bi-Rex an early stage start-up (TRL 4) that has developed a green process for biopolymer production. A significant example of female entrepreneurship, it was founded by Monica Ferro and Greta Colombo Dugoni, two researchers from the Politecnico di Milano, and is in the process of industrial development thanks to the support of a business angel. Recognised by Joule at the 2020 “StartCup Lombardia”, it has benefitted since January 2021 from a customised incubation scheme led by Polihub, with the methodological support of Joule.
Bi-Rex, was born in the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta” from the union of two research projects: study of new green and non-toxic solvents, and study of biopolymers, in particular of cellulose.
Despite being born only a year and a half ago, Bi-Rex led to four patents and the winning of important funding. In fact, after being selected among the winners of the 11th edition of Switch2Product Innovation Challenge, it has won the € 30,000 grant and the acceleration path within Polihub. Furthermore, thanks to the skills acquired, Bi-Rex obtained a pre-seed grant of € 160.000 from Poli360, an investment fund managed by 360 Capital Partners, a leading European venture capital company.
The project is about an innovative and eco-sustainable treatment of different biomass deriving from agri-food processing normally considered and managed as waste, in order to recover high added value products, such as cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, chitin, silica. The project is fully part of the circular economy, also recognized by Legambiente with the special mention in the Innovazione Amica dell’ambiente 2019 Award.
The pre-seed grant will allow to validate the proof of concept by tackling the scale up from the laboratory to the pilot plant. This will allow to study technical feasibility and economic sustainability on an industrial scale.
Environmental sustainability is today a focal aspect of technological innovation and European research policies. The European Union is ready to achieve the ambitious objective of climate neutrality by 2050, and fundamental to this aim is the promotion of new solutions for energy, from renewable sources, such as solar energy, and with efficient effective energy consumption.
Politecnico di Milano is a partner in the LIGHT-CAP project, and as such it is pursuing the goal of bringing about radical change regarding methodologies used for conversion and storage of solar energy. Still today, these are based primarily on silicone solar panels and bulky batteries, kept separate in two different devices. LIGHT-CAP will introduce a new nanotechnology-based architecture able to combine the two functions of conversion and storage in a single versatile device.
LIGHT-CAP has obtained funding worth 3.18 million euros from the European Union and the consortium, coordinated by the IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, includes EU and non-EU partners with academic and industrial backgrounds, in order to also be able to produce the first prototypes at the end of the project. In Italy in addition to the IIT, it also sees the involvement of Politecnico di Milano and the IIT start-up, Bedimensional, active in the production of nanomaterials and their implementation in devices for energy applications..
The aim of the LIGHT-CAP project is to manufacture a device similar to a battery charged by light; exposed, for example, to sunlight, the device charges like a normal battery plugged into a power outlet. Again like a normal battery, the energy stored can be used to power portable apparatus. To do this today,it takes two devices, a photovoltaic cell and a battery. The project device will be able to do both things.
The mechanism at the base is the separation of positive and negative charges after light irradiation on interfacing between two nanomaterials, one made up of nanoparticles measuring just a few nanometres, the other as fine as one or a few atoms like graphene.
To do this, Politecnico di Milano will use ultrafast continuous spectroscopy techniques (up to a time resolution of just a few femtoseconds) to study the optical properties of manufactured nanomaterials. The fundamental interactions between the different types of nanomaterials in liquid-liquid, liquid-solid, and solid-solid interfaces will also be studied.. The experimental measurements will be corroborated by a variety of theoretical models.
Politecnico di Milano will coordinate the project’s second Work Package, which focuses on the optical characterisation, optoelectronic characterisation and electrical characterisation of the new nanomaterials and new interfaces and heterojunctions.
The researchers will be using eco-compatible, easy-to-source materials (such as many minerals in the earth’s crust), to avoid supply-related criticalities. The project’s innovative ideas were successful in the Horizon 2020 European call for proposals for “Breakthrough zero-emissions energy storage and conversion technologies for climate-neutrality” as part of the “FET Proactive: Emerging Paradigms and Communities” programme.
The LIGHT-CAP comprises: the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italy), the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland), the Technische Universitaet Dresden (Germany), the Justus-Liebig-Universitaet Giessen (Germany), Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the Fundacion IMDEA Energia (Spain). The project also benefits from collaboration with a non-EU research group at the ‘Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, which will provide key competences in the synthesis and application of graphene-based nanomaterials. Further support will also come from the IIT start-up Be-Dimensional and from the company “Thales Research and Technology”.
The activities of the LAMPO (Lombardy-based Advanced Meteorological Predictions and Observations) project have been concluded. The aim of the project was to test, in the real open-air laboratory of the Seveso river basin, a system capable of mitigating the risk of flooding and hydrogeological instability.
In an area that straddles the provinces of Milan, Como and Lecco, a network of nine GNSS stations has been installed to monitor the content of water vapour in the atmosphere, with the aim of improving the very short-term forecasting of thunderstorm phenomena.
The LAMPO prediction system uses a multi-sensor approach, integrating real-time meteorological network data and GNSS signal delays due to vapour in the atmosphere.
The use of GNSS to estimate water vapour on a local scale is currently limited due to the high cost of the receivers. The innovation introduced by the LAMPO project was the use of modern, low-cost instruments, which made it possible to set up a large number of measuring stations and thereby create a data flow capable of providing continuous water vapour estimates over the entire Seveso basin.
The prediction system, based on artificial intelligence algorithms capable of learning from past data when a storm occurs, accurately predicts the likelihood of heavy rainfall in 80% of cases in the greater Milan area and with a lead time of around 30 minutes.
The LAMPO project, financed by Fondazione Cariplo, was led by the Geomatics and Earth Observation Laboratory (GEOlab) of the Politecnico di Milano and involved the Hydro-Meteorological Service of ARPA Lombardia, the Politecnico spin-off GReD, the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua and the Fondazione Politecnico di Milano.
An important opportunity for a Politecnico di Milano PhD student: Laura Pernigoni, a young researcher currently completing a PhD at the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, has been awarded one of the Fulbright Visiting Student Researcher grants set up to offer graduates on a PhD programme in Italy the opportunity to carry out research at an American university.
During the 2021/2022 academic year, Laura will carry out research at prestigious Harvard University, on the team headed by Professor Katia Bertoldi, to study innovative deployable structures for applications in space.
A group of researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology-Austria, the Politecnico di Milano, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and Universität Konstanz have created a qubit based on germanium nanostructures. The results of the research were presented recently in the journal Nature Materials.
The qubit, or quantum bit, is the quantum equivalent of a bit, the basic unit of information in a conventional computer with a value of zero or one. In the case of a qubit, the information may be stored in a superposition of two quantum states. In principle, this makes it possible to perform calculations that would require unmanageable times for a traditional calculator.
The qubit is created starting from nanometre layers of germanium, a semiconductor that can be easily integrated in a silicon chip, grown at the L-NESS laboratory in the Department of Physics. The charge carriers trapped in the nanometre layer are then further confined to the space of just a few nanometres through nanomanufacturing carried out at IST-Austria, which coordinated the research.
In contrast to traditional devices based on controlling the electric charge, the qubit uses spin, a purely quantum property of electrons. The confinement of the carriers allows the spin of a pair of charge carriers to be manipulated to perform basic logic operations underlying the quantum calculation.
With respect to similar devices created in the past, qubits based on germanium nanostructures require magnetic fields up to 10 times less and allow 100 million quantum operations to be performed each second.
UNPark / FREESTYLE was the concluding act in the field of a research project launched in 2019 by a multidisciplinary team of architects, designers and engineers from Politecnico di Milano as part of Polisocial Award, our social responsibility programme.
The event was organised with the support of various local associations (sports, cultural, social promotion) and thanks to the support of the public administration.
From 24 to 26 September, a series of free events open to the public took the place of a parking area under the Serra – Monte Ceneri (SMC) flyover in Milan, between Via Plana and Via Bartolini, illuminating spaces usually lit only by car headlights. The aim is to envisage a second life for infrastructures in high-density urban contexts, under the banner of social inclusion and urban regeneration through sport.
The UNPark – Urban Nudging Park research has – starting from its name – the ambitious objective of encouraging citizens and the Public Administration to trigger a shared process of regeneration of that infrastructure, which can be scaled up also in other contexts.
Built in the early 60s to alleviate access traffic to the Fiera Campionaria, the SMC flyover has over time become an increasingly critical element for the urban quality of the area, being seen by the inhabitants as a visual and physical barrier that makes the area suburban, despite being relatively close to the city centre. Not only is the SMC one of the main contributors to the deterioration of the area, but also the parking spaces underneath it are regarded as an element of insecurity and confusion, with serious repercussions on air quality due to fine dust and other pollutants. These areas create daily problems of health and safety, as well as the resulting commercial devaluation of the area and the delay in the innovation of urban services.
Working on the spaces at the SMC flyover therefore involved thinking not only about the infrastructure itself, but also about the regeneration of the places around it and, above all, the quality of life of the people who live there.
UNPark / FREESTYLE has been described in many ways: “courageous”, “visionary” and even “innovative”. But UNPark / FREESTYLE certainly didn’t go unnoticed, and that was the aim of the initiative. The Serra – Monte Ceneri flyover is in fact an opportunity for continuous experimentation, a permanent urban laboratory: it is a dilemma that has its own solution within it.
This initiative wanted to demonstrate that even the most neglected and abandoned space, with the involvement of the local inhabitants, can find its own redemption, also thanks to sport. Residents, associations, amateur sports clubs and groups in the area brought the flyover to life, demonstrating their skills by getting involved before, during and after UNPark / FREESTYLE.
For eighteen months, in fact, UNPark worked on topical issues such as: new models of collection, reuse and recycling of materials for the creation of social spaces; actions and methods of engagement of the population in urban regeneration processes; monitoring of air quality by means of open data collected by volunteer citizens; study of the opportunities offered by Nature Based Solutions (NBS) and the IoT world, technologies and lightweight textile components for environmental and acoustic mitigation.
Can we imagine a different future for urban infrastructure? Can infrastructures become part of public spaces and become “multi-systemic urban services”? For UNPark researchers, the answer is yes.
For general information on UNPark research, see www.unpark.it.
UNPark Research Group, Urban Nudging Park, Polisocial Award 2019:
Paolo Carli (Scientific Coordinator, DAStU), Luigi De Nardo (Project Manager, CMIC Natta), Matteo Clementi, Patrizia Scrugli (DAStU), Carol Monticelli, Giulia Procaccini (DABC), Barbara Di Prete, Agnese Rebaglio, Davide Crippa, Emilio Lonardo (DESIGN), Francesco Bruschi (DEIB).
Project partners and co-funders UNPark, Urban Nudging Park, Polisocial Award 2019:
Municipality 8 of the City of Milan; l’Assessorato Urbanistica, Verde e Agricoltura (through AMAT) del Comune di Milano; Open4Citizens (Open Data Lab Milano) H2020/CAPSI; Textile Hub – Politecnico di Milano.
UNPark project partners, Urban Nudging Park, Polisocial Award 2019:
Assessorato Partecipazione, Cittadinanza Attiva e Open Data del Comune di Milano; Liceo Scientifico Statale Piero Bottoni; ICS Rinnovata Pizzigoni; Citizens’ Committee of Milan in High Altitude; ARCI L’Impegno; Vittoria Insurance; Radio Popolare; OSG2001 Sports Association; Soulbasket Sports Association; Ass. Italian Catholic Guides and Scouts – Milan Group 20;15. ESO – Ecological Services Outsourcing company.
Project partner UNPark / FREESTYLE:
Municipio 8 of the City of Milan; DASTU Department Politecnico di Milano; Urban Planning, Green and Agriculture Department (through AMAT) of the City of Milan; ASD Disc Golf; ASD SkateMI; ASD Soul Basket; Giovanni Testori Association; Catholic Italian Guides and Scouts Association – AGESCI Group 20; Bar Via Plana 32; Bendy Dance Studio; Serra flyover – High-altitude Milan; Circolo Arci L’Impegno; Garage Moulinski; Istituto Comprensivo “Rinnovata Pizzigoni”; Radio Popolare; Soulfood Forestfarms Hub Italia.
Thanks to:
Simone Zambelli, Paolo Romano (Municipio 8, Comune di Milano); Federico Confalonieri (Direzione Mobilità e Trasporti, Comune di Milano); Eugenio Petz (Ufficio Servizi civici, Partecipazione e Sport, Comune di Milano); Lorenzo Lipparini (Assessorato Partecipazione, Cittadinanza Attiva e Open Data); Stefano Maldifassi e la squadra del NU.I.R (NU.I.R., Comune di Milano); Nicoletta Cappellini, Concetta Scatozza, Carlo Gallon, Enrico Maestri (Polizia Locale, Comando Decentrato 8); Stefano Ragazzo, Massimiliano Ferioli (AMAT); Luca Masseroni, Alberto Beretta (AMSA); Claudia Reati, Elaheh Qazalifard, Qin (PoliMI); Alberto Ruffini (ASD Soul Basket); Giulio Mirulla (Agesci); Matteo Fonso, Alessandro Bruni (Bar Via Plana 32); Giulio Ambrosio, Edoardo Arcuri, Andrea Barbieri, Beatrice Fragasso, Daniele Grossi, Simone Italiano, Anna Libman, Matteo Mucciarini, Maddalena Pernechele, Enrico Recalcati, Stefano Recalcati, Alberto Tansini, Francesca Zambrini (Circolo Arci L’Impegno); Alessandro Balzani (Garage Moulinski); Anna Teresa Ferri (ICS Rinnovata Pizzigoni); Catia Giarlanzani, Alessandro Gilioli (Radio Popolare); Alessandro Didonna (Soulfood Forestfarms Hub Italia); Massimiliano Cason Villa, Federico Bielli, Davide Stanga, Christian Scenini (IDEAS bit factory); Roberto Bresciani, Roberto Stuani (AUSER Piazza Prealpi); Silvia Di Stefano (Serra flyover – Milan at high altitude); Wendy Lynton e Sig. Wanda (Bandy Dance Studio); Davide Dall’Ombra e Francesca Pinna (Testori House Association); Giulio Mirulla e Marco Tamburini (Agesci); Bruno ed Erica Ferrari (SkateMi); Ricky e TIStee (Disc Golf); Sara Gué; Spino. And also: Matteo Di Giovanni; Marina Fiore; Marco Giorgio; Ornella Scarpa; Tommaso Scrugli; Piero Volpe; teachers, parents and students who took part in the competitions.
For technical support:
Lucia Balestrieri and Domenico La Scala (Stagedeck); Alessandro and Marianna (POLIPRINT); IDEAS bit factory; Textile Architecture Network (TAN, PoliMI); Nicolas Meletiou (ESO Società Benefit arl); Angela Di Lorenzo (DECATHLON Milano Portello); Pierpaolo Poli Cappelli (KOH I NOOR); VOLVERUP – Melina Benetton
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