Erik Franco – Pagina 9 – Progress in Research

Artcast4D: immersive technology meets art

Posted on 23/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

To combine art and immersive technology to allow people to interact with culture and liberate creativity. This is the objective of Artcast4D, a three-year project financed by the Horizon Europe Programme which sees the Politecnico di Milano and 10 partners from 7 European countries collaborate with artists, cultural organisations, creative businesses, museums, cities and local authorities to develop new immersive experiences in public spaces.

The ability to feel ‘immersed’ differs from person to person, some identify with the context described in a story, others on board a professional simulator continue to keep reality and simulation separate
Alfredo Rocchi, scientific coordinator of Artcast4D

Immersive technologies contribute to improving the breadth, depth and intensity of artistic performances and the experiences of visitors to public spaces and artistic and cultural institutions. However, currently such technologies are neither easily available nor accessible to everyone. Artcast4D hopes to develop an open source solution based on tried and tested real-time 2D/3d AAASeed software.

The project will contribute to developing the cultural and creative industries’ potential, and encourage the containment of design and development costs, making it possible to create non-invasive, immersive and interactive user experiences, integrating online impact assessment and measurement techniques from the outset.

Artcast 4D technology will be experimented with in 4 pilot projects in Issy-les-Moulineaux (France), Hounslow (United Kingdom), Valencia and Athens, each focusing on different issues and experiences which will involve creatives and industry partners, together with civil society.

Circular economy: the CIRC-UITS project

Posted on 22/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The three-year project CIRC-UITS (Circular Integration of independent Reverse supply Chains for the smart reUse of IndusTrially relevant Semiconductors), co-financed by the European Commission under its Horizon Europe programme, and coordinated by professors Paolo Rosa and Sergio Terzi from the Politecnico di Milano’s Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, has kicked off.

CIRC-UITS intends to develop new technologies for designing, producing, disassembling and efficiently and sustainably reusing disused electronic components inside new products, but it also intends to define new business models to improve data sharing and standardisation among the industrial leaders involved in the supply chains.

In particular, the advantages of the digital circular economy will be demonstrated through 4 pilot projects:

Development of environmentally friendly electronic panels to be incorporated into inverters and battery management systems in electric cars
Development of new-generation tyre sensors
Development of environmentally friendly flexible processing boards
Classification and storage of obsolete printed circuits of various pieces of electrical and electronic equipment

In this way, CIRC-UITS will provide material support to businesses in the automotive and mass-produced electronics sector, demonstrating the benefits that can be obtained from the application of the circular economy paradigm both from the perspective of both the business and supply chain and from the technological and sustainability perspective, through the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in the processes through which disused electronic components are managed and in the design of new products.

PALIMPSEST – Creative Drivers for Sustainable Heritage Landscapes

Posted on 21/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano continues to affirm its leading role in European research with new projects in the context of the New European Bauhaus initiative, launched by the European Union to spread the culture of the European Green Deal among citizens.

PALIMPSEST activities are coordinated by the group of prof. Grazia Concilio of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies.

Inspired by the idea that territories are “palimpsests” shaped by the stratification of projects and practices that have acted on the natural environment, the project looks at landscapes that make this stratification visible, focusing in particular on three agricultural and urban landscapes called to face significant environmental and climatic challenges.

PALIMPSEST, whose activities will be carried out in Milan, Jerez de la Frontera and Lodz, aims to reconnect to a lost “wisdom” by triggering co-creation processes in which architecture, design and artistic practices are in dialogue with technical-scientific knowledge, specific needs of places and the great systemic challenges, to imagine new scenarios and experiment with innovative practices capable of combining human actions, landscape heritage and sustainability goals.

DESIRE – Designing the Irresistible Circular Society

Posted on 20/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano continues to affirm its leading role in European research with new projects in the context of the New European Bauhaus initiative, launched by the European Union to spread the culture of the European Green Deal among citizens.

DESIRE – Designing the Irresistible Circular Society, involves the Department of Design with the group led by prof. Alessandro Deserti.

This Coordinated and Support Action supports the “100 climate-neutral and smart cities” mission, proposing an approach to design that is attentive to circularity principles and open to artists, creatives, makers and other organizations. Starting from architecture, design and art, DESIRE will create an open learning environment, defined by principles, methods and guidelines that support the design of an irresistible circular society.

DESIRE is one of the six “demonstrator” projects of the New European Bauhaus initiative and will be tested in 8 urban spaces and neighbourhoods in 6 different European countries: Denmark, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia and the Netherlands.

DESIRE will work in and with these contexts, focusing on three challenges: creating of forms of inclusive housing; the “symbiotic relationship” typical of urban landscapes and the related optimization of the use of material flows; “reconciling cities with nature” for designing liveable habitats and functional ecosystems from a multispecies perspective by rebalancing land use to accommodate the generation of resources and biodiversity.

HERCCULES: decarbonization project coordinated by LEAP

Posted on 17/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

HERCCULES has started, an international research project stemmed from an ambitious idea by researchers at LEAP (Piacenza Energy and Environment Laboratory) and Politecnico di Milano. The consortium made up of 23 partners will work for 5 years with the aim of demonstrating the feasibility of the entire CO₂ Capture, Utilisation and Storage chain (CCUS) in the regions of southern Europe with a high industrial density, in this case in the Po Valley and Greece. The primary focus is the decarbonisation of cement production and waste-to-energy, two strategic sectors for the circular economy.

The project intends to trigger concrete actions to contain CO₂ emissions. It will aim to accelerate the application of the CCUS in Mediterranean Europe, leveraging on the transport and storage initiatives already under construction in Italy and Greece and developing innovative capture technologies that are not only efficient, but also particularly flexible and replicable, in order to be adaptable to the technological evolutions of the reference industrial sectors.

The technological, infrastructural, safety, regulatory and financial aspects will be addressed with a multidisciplinary approach, which will allow the creation of industrial communities capable of exploiting the synergy between the processes of the CCUS supply chain. Universities, research centers and consulting companies will develop business models of HERCCULES technologies sized for future full-scale applications.

Finally, one of the objectives of HERCCULES will be to improve information on the CCUS theme: communication experts will organize educational and training events to communicate methodologies and technological solutions with schools, stakeholders and policy makers, with the aim of accompanying the transition of our industrial sectors towards a sustainable future for the European environment and economy.

HERCCULES was funded by the program Horizon Europe and has the support of numerous industrial partners. The application of CO₂ capture technologies is an essential element for the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050 based on the scenarios outlined by the European directives and the recommendations of the Commission itself.

CONSORTIUM PARTNERS
LEAP (coordinator), EU CORE Consulting (Italy), Energan Oil&Gas (Greece), Buzzi Unicem (Italy), Titan cement (Greece), Sumitomo SHI FW (Finland), Air Liquide (Italy), Fraunhofer ISI (Germany), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), BCG (Italy), CSIC (Spain), Celitement (Germany), Università di Utrecht (Netherlands), Wietersdorfer Alpacem (Austria), Artidek (Ukraine), Shogenergy (Estonia), Università di LUT (Finland), TPI (Italy), ClustER Greentech (Italy), CRES (Greece), A2A Ambiente e A2A Spa (Italy), ENI (Italy).

New optical tool will help decode bioelectric signalling in bacteria

Posted on 16/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

A new optical tool will help scientists unlock the secrets of bacterial electrical signalling – paving the way for insights into antimicrobial resistance, drug efficacy and infection control.

Like neurons, bacteria use ion channels to process environmental cues and communicate with each other. Now, scientists have just discovered a tool which can modulate bacterial electricity, bringing new approaches to study and control bacterial cells.

Today, in a study published in Advanced Science, scientists at the University of Warwick and Politecnico di Milano, reported a major step forward in the field of bacterial electrophysiology.

The team used a membrane-targeted chemical, azobenzene (Ziapin2) to modulate the membrane potential in bacterial cells using light.

This powerful tool has the potential to advance our understanding of microbial phenomena and pave the way for new approaches to studying and controlling various bacterial processes – from the global threat of antimicrobial resistance to better developing the efficacy of pharmaceuticals.

The introduction of light-methods in bacteria can potentially open up new exciting research routes. Apart from addressing the urgent issue of antimicrobial resistance, this approach can be exploited to build up bacterial hybrids capable to perceive light and perform useful tasks, such as drug delivery in hard-to-reach body locations.
Giuseppe Paternò, assistant professor at the Department of Physics

This study was funded in part by Fondazione Cariplo.

The study is online

Advanced materials and components for PEM fuel cells

Posted on 14/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The PERMANENT project has kicked off. It will face the major causes that limit the durability and stability of hydrogen-powered polymer electrolyte fuel cell technology (PEMFC).

An investment of 3.4 million euros in 36 months to fully understand the degradation mechanisms in real operating conditions for mobility applications and propose solutions based on a radically innovative approach: the multi-scale structuring of components.

The project includes fundamental research activities based on the availability of proponents of Key Enabling Technologies related to the development, synthesis and characterization of advanced materials and structured materials at the nano- and micro-scale, nanotechnologies and innovative production processes.

The technological field of application of research results is sustainable transport, which determines particularly demanding dynamic operating conditions.

The expected results of increased durability and stability will be directly transferable to polymer fuel cells for stationary applications, and subsequently will also be implementable in electrolysers for the electrolytic production of green hydrogen (and in flow batteries for energy storage from renewable sources).

Permanent is based on the experience and complementarity of an Italian consortium of excellence which will initially be able to understand and therefore mitigate the degradation of fuel cells for transport, developing highly innovative materials and components
Professor Andrea Casalegno, project coordinator of the Department of Energy

The project partners, coordinated by the Politecnico di Milano, are: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca – Department of Materials Science, Università degli Studi di Padova – Department of Industrial Engineering, Solvay Specialty Polymers Italy.

TRACES: higher education in the field of aviation safety

Posted on 07/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

In the European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) 2019 annual report, in-flight icing was identified as a major problem for large aircraft.

Aircraft manufacturers must therefore demonstrate safe operation in freezing conditions before any new product is commissioned. This involves significant costs as the inherent complexity of freezing processes means that certification authorities place little trust in simulations and therefore require wind tunnel tests and flight tests to be carried out in freezing conditions.

TRACES (TRAining the next generation iCE researcherS) is a European joint doctoral network whose main objective is to train a group of experienced researchers in the field of in-flight icing, capable of mastering the different disciplines required to analyse the complexity of phenomena related to airframe icing and its mitigation in aircraft and aircraft engines.

Within TRACES, researchers will take part in various kinds of training activities: practical research activities, periods of work with non-academic partners and participation in scientific and additional soft skills courses and workshops.

The coordinator of TRACES is Alberto Guardone, professor at the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology of the Politecnico di Milano; 13 other universities and companies in the sector are members of the consortium.

The TRACES project website

PROJECT BENEFICIARIES

Politecnico di Milano
Technische Universitat Braunschweig – TUBS
Technische Universitat Darmstadt – TUDA
Office National d’Etudes et de Researches Aérospatiales – ONERA
École Polytechnique – ECPOL

INDUSTRY PARTNERS

Airbus Defence and Space Gmbh
Airbus Helicopters S.A.S.
Airbus Operation S.A.S.
Dassault Aviation
Eurac Research
General Electric Deutschland Holding Gmbh
Leonardo
Safran Aircraft Engines
Safran Aerotechnic

ADVISORY BOARD

EASA – European Aviation Safety Agency
FAA – Federal Aviation Administration
NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NRC – National Research Council
DLR – German Aerospace Center

New European doctoral network GreenDigiPharma

Posted on 31/01/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Forming a group of European PhD students specialized in the development of sustainable production methods for the pharmaceutical sector – this is the goal of GreenDigiPharma (“Green and digital continuous-flow pharmaceutical manufacturing”), the new “doctoral network” financed by the European Commission within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme, and coordinated by prof. Gianvito Vilé, researcher at the “Giulio Natta” Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano.

Therefore, the purpose of GreenDigiPharma is to create a group of highly qualified PhDs that will operate in the academic as well as in the industrial world to introduce new skills, fundamental to guide the green and digital transformation of pharmaceutical production.

GreenDigiPharma will train the leaders of tomorrow in the pharmaceutical industry, who will propose innovative solutions able to simultaneously increase the productivity of this sector, improve its competitiveness and reduce its environmental impact.
Professor Gianfranco Vilé, coordinator of GreenDigiPharma

In addition to the Politecnico di Milano, the project involves 9 other European universities, 8 industrial partners and a research body.

Exploring the properties of new catalytic reactors with structured conductive internals

Posted on 20/01/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

After more than 5 years of work, the INTENT project, which was hosted at the Politecnico di Milano’s Department of Energy and funded by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), has achieved its main objectives: to explore the properties of new catalytic reactors with structured conductive internals and to demonstrate their potential applications in the intensification of chemical processes that are crucial to the energy transition.

A catalytic reactor is an appliance in which chemical reactions occur in ways and at speeds that are valuable for industry, thanks to the use of special materials called catalysts. The INTENT research team, coordinated by Professor Enrico Tronconi, has achieved significant results in this field of research, which will help to create a future of cleaner and more sustainable energy.

The project has already had an important impact:

the award of an ERC Proof of Concept Grant to the INSTANT project, which aims to utilise the results of INTENT for the industrialisation of an innovative compact reformer suitable to cogeneration systems (“combined heat and power”) for residential and small-scale uses;
the award of funding from the Ministry of Universities and Research to the projects BEATRICS (FARE) and PLUG-IN (PRIN 2020) on the basis of INTENT’s success;
the award of funding to the Horizon EU project EReTech and to an industry research project focussing on electrified methane reforming using the ohmic heating of structured catalysts, an innovative concept developed by INTENT;
the creation of a pilot plant at the Politecnico laboratories of the Bovisa campus with which to test INTENT’s new reactor concept in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis on a representative scale, a rarity in the academic field;
25 scientific publications in the principal journals of the fields of Chemical Engineering, Energy and Catalysis (listed on the website), a patent and numerous invites to present the results of INTENT at international conferences.

The project website

The results of the project