Projects News

The XRE4S  (R+D+I Energy for Society Network) launched the first call for the Lab-to-Market (L2M) program, the technology scouting program for the members of the network. It consists on the pre-screening on technology assessment, market opportunity and analysis of the intellectual property status and strategy.

We are very happy to announce that the ICMAB has been granted the project "Matheroes: The Box" in the last FECYT 2019 projects call for the promotion of science, technological and innovation culture. This project is the second part of the project "Matheroes: Supermaterials, the heroes of the future" and also counts with the participation of many ICMAB researchers and staff, and with our collaborators, ESCIENCIA. The mission is to explain our 5 Research Lines in Materials for Energy, Superconductors, Oxide Electronics, Molcular Electronics and Biomaterials to young students! 

The project to improve the rechargeability of zinc-air batteries, led by ICMAB researchers from the Solid State Chemistry group, has been featured this week in R+D CSIC news. These batteries have more capacity than the lithium-ion ones, and are made of cheap materials, which are widely available in nature as well as safe.

Researchers from the Superconducting Materials and Large Scale Nanostructures (SUMAN) group will be joining researchers from 13 other countries in the development of a network with the intention to push for the implementation of Hight Temperature Superconductors (HST) to all the different parts of the electrical energy chain, in the framewor of a European COST Action.

Giulia Fabriani, a science communication student in La Sapienza University, Rome, participated in the FETFX programme "Journalist-in-the-lab" and interviewed researcher M. Rosa Palacín about the CARBAT project. The result: a nice pice of news entitled "If batteris are the question, Calcium could be the answer" published at the FETFX website. 

Arianna Ricchiuti, one of the science communication students involved in the FETFX initiative Journalist-in-the-lab, has made the fantastic infographic "The future of batteris is (E)MAGIC" to explain the European Magnesium Interactive Battery Community (E-MAGIC)  international project, which is developing new technologies based on magnesium for energy storage. 

The MSCA IF Project entitled Tuning COPs (Conducting Organic Polymers) with IP Clara Viñas, was selected for publication in the ‘Results in Brief’ section of the European Commission’s CORDIS website, in six languages. The article features the main results of the project. "Tuning COPs" started in October 2017 and finished in October 2019.

The researchers from four ICMAB Research Groups will be joining another 35 groups from 14 different universities, as well as research and technology centers, with the objective of boosting the energy sector in Catalunya and turning it into a strong international referent for innovation, at the R+D+I Energy for Society Network (XRE4S). 

Nora Ventosa and Nathaly Segovia, from the NANOMOL Group at the ICMAB, have been selected as part of the NARTIC Project team for an incubation program by Barcelona Activa. NARTIC is a biotech project for the development of molecular therapy based on Quatsomes for diseases such as cancer.

Since the coronavirus outbreak in Spain, in February-March 2020, many of the research funding agencies, the European Commission, and private institutions have opened research project calls to face the COVID-19. Here we have collected some of this calls. Feel free to contact us if you think some of the important calls are missing.

The “Idees Innovadores Isabel P. Trabal” award is organised by the Caixa d’Enginyers and is looking for scientific enterprises to boost the development of technological and innovative projects with a focus on engineering and sustainability. The SENSORAÏM project, born at ICMAB, is now eligible for a 10.000 € grant.

A project to improve the security of the identification systems using magnetic memories, a project to enhance the duration of Zn-air batteries, and a project to treat corneal wounds with nanocellulose patches.

The FASTGRID project, in which the SUMAN group at ICMAB participates, has released a new video, shot in the premises of one of the partners (SuperGrid Institute, France) to explain in simple terms and with animations the objectives of the project. The video includes footage from the production line of the German industrial partner THEVA and from the winding process made by the French company Sigmaphi in collaboration with the SuperGrid Institute.

The kick-off meeting of FusionCAT project took place on 29 January 2020 at the UPC Rectorat and was organized by Barcelona SuperComputing (BSC), who coordinate the project. From the ICMAB,  Xavier Granados and Joffre Gutierrez from the SUMAN group participate in this project, which aims in establishing an active fusion community in Catalonia.

On the occasion of the "Marató de TV3: Minories que fan una Majoria", which is this year devoted to rare diseases, we would like to show you a project in which we participate and which tackles a rare disease: the SMART-4-FABRY project. One of the main objectives of the project is to use nanotechnology to increase the efficiency of the current treatment for the Fabry disease, based on the GLA enzyme. Nora Ventosa and her team, from CIBER-BBN and NANOMOL group at ICMAB-CSIC, coordinate the project, in which fourteen partners from different countries participate.

The Catalan Association of Scientific Communication (ACCC), together with many research centers and universities, including the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB), have initiated an art project that will represent in a different way thw world of nanotechnology: NANOCAEDRE. Susagna Ricart, from the ICMAB, participates in this project with her expertise in the superconducting phenomena. The presentation of the project will take place at the Basilica Sants Màrtirs Just i Pastor (Barcelona), on Tuesday, 10 December, at 7 pm.

• The second call of this program will allow 12 predoctoral researchers to start their PhD at the ICMAB-CSIC, the ICN2, the IMB-CNM-CSIC, the IREC and the ALBA Synchrotron
• In total the DOC-FAM program will enable 22 early stage researchers to conduct their PhD in the field of "Advanced Functional Materials" in these outstanding research institutions
• The DOC-FAM program, coordinated by the ICMAB, is the first MSCA COFUND coordinated by a CSIC center

The Plant Nanohealing Technology, jointly developed by CRAG and ICMAB-CSIC researchers, is currently being tested by the company Forestal Catalana.

"SENSORAÏM: Autonomous Distributed Sensor Networks for a Smart Viticulture" is the new project led by Mariano Campoy-Quiles from the NANOPTO group at the ICMAB funded by FEDER (Fons Europeu de Desenvolupament Regional), Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) and Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya, within the modality "PRODUCTE" grants (2018 PROD 00191), aimed at obtaining prototypes of the research results generated by research groups in Catalunya. These projects are excellent to reinforce the technology transfer of the Catalan research centers. 

The project "Synthetic nanoparticles as an innovative treatment in sepsis (SPRINT-4-SEPSIS)" will be funded by the Ramón Areces Foundation within the framework of the XIX National Contest of Life and Material Sciences Research Grants. Anna Roig will be part of the project. 

CARBAT, the FET-Open European project on Calcium Rechargeable Battery Technology, coordinated by M. Rosa Palacín at ICMAB, has a new video that explains their project! If you want to know more, check it out here!

Within the MOTHER project (Molecule-based materials and supramolecular organizations for therapy, diagnosis and tissue engineering), the NANOMOL group from ICMAB collaborates with the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR), on the developement of a new nanomedicine for the treatment of high risk neuroblastoma, one of the most typical childhood cancers. Now, researchers from VHIR have identified new microRNAs that reduce the progression of this type of cancer.

The SusPlast platform was officially launched on March 2019. The "Interdisciplinary Platform for Sustainable Plastics towards a Circular Economy" platform counts with the participation of 15 research groups from CSIC centers. From the ICMAB, from the Supercritical Fluids and Functional Materials group (SFFM) participates in the platform.

Each year on 4 February, World Cancer Day empowers all the world to show support, raise their voices, take personal action and press the governments to do more. We would like to show you our projects on cancer research. Take a look at our projects!

The E-MAGIC (European Magnesium Interactive Battery Community) research project is a European H2020 FET-PROACTIVE recently funded with 6.5 million euros. Its aim is to develop new magnesium-based batteries, more powerful, cheaper and safer than lithium-ion ones. The project could pave the way for the establishment of a competitive battery cell production landscape in Europe.

• The device is composed of cellulose produced in the laboratory by bacteria, with small amounts of carbon nanotubes, resulting very sustainable
• The device could be used to generate electricity in wearables, in medical and sports applications, and as intelligent thermal insulator

With the participation of 9 academic institutions and 2 industrial organisations in 6 countries, the SEPOMO European H2020 MSCA-ITN network is training 15 early-stage researchers during a 3-year period in the fields of Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science and Engineering for efficient photovoltaic devices based on organic molecules. Two of these fellows are supervised by ICMAB researchers: Francesco Silvestri, supervised by Esther Barrena, and Rana Adel Abdelaleim Mohammed, who is doing her research at Eurecat, co-supervised by Mariano Campoy-Quiles. 

Resarchers from the NANOMOL group at the ICMAB-CSIC and from CIBER-BBN, led by Dr. Imma Ratera, have been awarded with a project from Fundació La Marató de TV3 for the coordinated-project about prevention of infections related with vascular catheters: "Prevenció d’infeccions relacionades amb els CATèters vasculars mitjançant la FUNcionalització de catèters impregnats d'hidrogels activables tèrmicament amb  antimicrobians d’ampli espectre (FUNCATH)".

The paper Direct and converse piezoelectric responses at the nanoscale from epitaxial BiFeO₃ thin films grown by polymer assisted deposition published this October in the Nanoscale journal, has received funding from the EU-H2020 research and innovation programme, having benefitted from the access provided by the ICMAB-CSIC in Barcelona, within the framework of the NFFA-Europe Transnational Access Activity. 

Watch here the video of the ULTRASUPERTAPE project, the ERC Advanced Grant project awarded to Teresa Puig, explained here in plain words for everyone to understand!