PROSPER's overarching outcome will be the availability of knowledge-based design guidelines for industrial-relevant application cases, together with strategies for scale-up and a safe long-term operation, ultimately leading to the broad application of photochemistry on an industrial scale. PROSPER will setup a tailored network to train the next generation of experts on fundamentals, design principles and application of industrial-scale photoreactors through comprehensive education on a broad portfolio of topics related to photochemical processes and through hands-on training on industrially relevant research topics. By this, the industrial and academic partners of PROSPER will overcome implementation hurdles and enable the chemical industries’ transition towards sustainable production. The main scientific objectives are: 1. to develop standardized methods for measuring the photon flux and characterizing radiation fields, 2. to understand the impact of mass and heat transport effects on the performance of photoreactors as a basis for developing novel industrial photoreactors for sustainable processing and process intensification, 3. to establish reaction control strategies which maximize photon use efficiency and enable long-term operation, 4. to elucidate safety requirements for photochemical processes and 5. to develop a knowledge-base on photochemical reactor and processes development, containing design guidelines and principles together with performance criteria for photoreactors to enable a knowledge-driven development and scale-up, eventually leading to standard reactor designs. Joint interdisciplinary research by academic and industrial partners will be realized by excellent training through a high-quality, cross-sectional research network including 6 internationally reputed research institutions and 4 leading companies to train experts on photoreactor design with special focus on application at the interface between academic and industrial research.

To face the increased needs on current consumptions, some new technologies are introduced in power conversion stages (mainly owing to the introduction of GaN transistors). Few years ago, the Si Transistors as switches was the device limiting the performance and the market was dominated by US manufacturers in a monopoly for space application with high costs (need of specific design and foundries to face the radiation environment). This also lead to EU dependence to US export control restrictions. The introduction of GaN transistors allow to get better performances and also EU non dependence as some initiative promote European supply chain (as shown in H2020 EleGaNt on-going project). But now, the main integration & performance limitation is now the controller of the power stages available in the market : - Performance : limited switching frequency operation due to : o Device technology : most of them in the market are in bipolar technology (slow & power consumption) o Radiation sensitivity : heavy ions can cause transients that are to be filtered (slowing down the performances) o Power consumption of the controller itself Functionality : Many functions are set owing to external parts (fine analog tuning, switching fThe SCOPS (Scalable Controller fOr Power Sources) This project sets one clear and measurable main objective: To design and evaluate the performance in space environment of Application Specific Integrated Circuit, nameds SCOPS, to control several power supply phases in parallel, using non-dependent supply chain. To do so, it is necessary that SCOPS provides the Space Community with: 1. A flexible SCOPS Circuit that overcomes the limitations of existing controllers in terms of phase paralleling possibilities, performance, feature and radiation robustness. 2. A fair commercialization and intellectual property management to allow the purchase of the SCOPS outcomes at a competitive cost in front of its non-European alternatives for space applications.

Inspired from the highly efficient aerodynamics of birds, the versatility of the jelly-moon fringes, the manta ray and sharks, the multidisciplinary project BEALIVE introduces a new science and technology at the interface between aeronautics and bioengineering. The project creates a “live skin” composed of an innovative moving interface between an air-vehicle and the surrounding turbulence. Applied around a body, e.g. around an aircraft’s wing, this contributes to increase the aerodynamic performance and reduce noise far beyond all systems currently under study. The solid-fluid interface is composed of a large number of electroactive fringes made of an optimized combination of Carbon-Nano-Tubes and Graphene with high sensing and actuation capacity, able to deform and vibrate. This allows the skin to interact with the surrounding inhomogeneous turbulent flow. The interface between the solid and the fluid consists of the active fringes (shells) forming a porous-medium, modeled by poroelastic theory. The interaction and manipulation of the fluid-structure and fluid-fluid turbulent interfaces will create an optimal new medium with no distinction between the fluid and the solid structure. The “live skin” and the overall design will contain Big Data and rely on Artificial Intelligence and on a Controller that will define and optimise the dynamics of the system in real time and in large scale. The optimization will be based on data assimilation from Wind Tunnel experiments and from Hi-Fi CFDSM (Computational Fluid-Dynamics Structural Mechanics) using a triple solver coupling: structural modelling (SM), porous layer and turbulent flow. The design has as kernel a hierarchy of the interfaces, from micro to macroscale, between material-material, material-flow and flow-flow. Such enhanced levels of manipulation will allow drastic increases of aerodynamic performance and energy efficiency in all flight phases, beyond any currently foreseeable targets.

ICHAruS is a Doctoral Network aimed to train early-stage researchers, able to face current and future challenges in the field of innovative, edge-cutting technologies based on electro-magnetic assist to achieve full control of the hydrogen flames. ICHAruS has been built to provide doctoral training in a collaborative partnership between academic and industry partners who are major European gas turbine manufacturers. The aim of this partnership is thus to understand the physical processes that govern the interaction between hydrogen combustion and electro-magnetic fields at all flow scales to achieve such control and identify the key parameters that would allow for the design of an innovative, ultra-low NOx and flashback-proof combustion device. The behavior of hydrogen flames under plasma discharge and electromagnetic conditioning offer the opportunity to strongly accelerate the path towards zero-carbon energy and transport sectors. Three specific research objectives will be pursued: 1) Investigation and modelling of electromagnetic field effects on the species transport and chemical kinetics to unveil the effect of external electromagnetic fields on the reaction chemistry of hydrogen in both pure oxygen and air, and also determine any effects on the formation of pollutants. The effect of differential diffusion on the flame structure as opposed to electromagnetic drift will be also investigated. 2) Develop turbulence combustion models for low- and high-energy electromagnetic assisted combustion. The competing effects between electromagnetic drift and turbulence transport will be investigated and sub-grid scale closures for large-eddy simulations that consider the effect of electromagnetic fields and plasma will be developed. 3) Experimental and numerical investigation of innovative electromagnetic-assisted control technologies for the stabilisation of flames of practical interest. Both single swirl flames and annular configurations will be investigated

All information humankind has of the ancient past of our planet comes from analyzing the geological record encoded in rocks. There is, however, no rock record of the first 600 million years of Earth’s history. Unlocking the secrets of this earliest period –the Hadean– is a fundamental task for science, as it is key to understanding how the planet became habitable, when the first forms of metabolism and self-replication developed, and life appeared. The lack of a geological record has led scientists to use computational modeling to make inferences about the conditions in Early Earth’s environments. Less common are laboratory experiments specifically targeted to simulating Hadean conditions. Based on ubiquitous carbonaceous chert deposits in the oldest rock record, it is widely accepted that many early Archean aquatic settings were reducing and rich in silica and some basic carbon-based molecules. We reason that such aquatic conditions were already established during the early Hadean, and inevitably led to the existence of a large-scale factory of simple and complex organic compounds, many of them relevant to prebiotic chemistry and to the route to biomimetic hybrid microstructures able to self-organize and catalyze prebiotic reactions relevant to the origin of life. Our project is aimed at understanding the crucial role of silica in directing the geochemical and protobiological processes, creating habitats for early life, and preserving early biomass on Earth’s surface during the first billion years of its history. PROTOS will use an array of laboratory experiments (the Hadean Simulator) to systematically study ab-initio reactions of water and gases with the earliest rock types in order to determine compositions of aquatic habitats and subsequent silica precipitation mechanisms, organic synthesis processes on silica/iron surfaces, and the preservation of the first remnants of life. PROTOS will change our view of the infancy of the planet.