Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Electrical Petrology: tracking mantle melting and volatiles cycling using electrical conductivity (ELECTROLITH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Earth system science
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-11-01
End date: 2017-10-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1051236.0
EU funding (EUR): 1051236.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Melting in the Earth’s mantle rules the deep volatile cycles because it produces liquids that concentrate and redistribute volatile species. Such redistributions trigger volcanic degassing, magma emplacement in the crust and hydrothermal circulation, and other sorts of chemical redistribution within the mantle (metasomatism). Melting also affects mantle viscosities and therefore impacts on global geodynamics. So far, experimental petrology has been the main approach to construct a picture of the mantle structure and identify regions of partial melting. Magnetotelluric (MT) surveys reveal the electrical properties of the deep Earth and show highly conductive regions within the mantle, most likely related to volatiles and melts. However, melting zones disclosed by electrical conductivity do not always corroborate usual pictures deduced from experimental petrology. In 2008, I proposed that small amount of melts, very rich in volatiles species and with unusual physical properties, could reconcile petrological and geophysical observations. The broadening of this idea is however limited by (i) the incomplete knowledge of both petrological and electrical properties of those melts and (ii) the lack of petrologically based models to fit MT data. ELECTROLITH will fill this gap by treating the following points: - How volatiles in the H-C-S-Cl-F system trigger the beginning of melting and how it affects mantle conductivity? - What are the atomic structures and the physical properties of such volatile-rich melts? - How can such melts migrate in the mantle and what are the relationships with deformation? - What are the scaling procedures to integrate lab-scale observations into a petrological scheme that could decipher MT data in terms of melt percolation models, strain distributions and chemical redistributions in the mantle ELECTROLITH milestone is therefore a reconciled perspective of geophysics and petrology that will profoundly enrich our vision of the mantle geodynamics

Keywords: volatiles,mantle,electrical conductvity
RF-enhanced Microprocessing for Fine Chemicals Synthesis using Catalysts Supported on Magnetic Nanoparticles (RFMIFICS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2015-12-31
Duration (months): 52.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1242000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1242000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

This proposal aims at further strengthening the current line of the applicant’s research in the area of nontraditional energy sources and structured reactors. Novel and challenging reactor concepts and technologies are proposed for newly emerging liquid phase catalytic processes for, amongst others, fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals synthesis. Catalytic processes in the liquid phase are crucial in the manufacturing of fine and specialty chemicals. It is widely accepted that the activity of a solid catalyst suspended in a liquid phase can benefit greatly from the use of smaller catalyst particles to avoid mass-transfer limitations. However, the difficulties in recovering small particles from the reaction mixture severely circumvent their industrial applications. To overcome the above drawbacks, the separation of suspended magnetic catalyst bodies from the liquid system using an external magnetic field is proposed. Functionalized magnetic bimetallic nanoparticles are leading candidates for catalytic applications as a vector for magnetic guidance. Their appclication will provide reactors and processes for synthetic routes and high-value added products with optimal space-time yields, minimum waste production, minimum energy consumption, and minimum operating costs. Two novel reactor concepts are proposed in this ERC starting grant program with the aim to develop and demonstrate continuous flow reactors, viz. (1) the RF-heated reactor where catalytically active magnetic nanoparticles are hold in the reactor by an external magnetic field while being heated, and (2) the micro-flow through reactor for magnetic NP manipulation, where mixing in laminar flow is improved by quadrupolar actuation created by a quadrupolar micro magnet arrangement along the channel.

Keywords: process architectures,process intensification,continuous operation,fine chemicals synthesis.
Strongly Coupled Systems (SCS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-10-01
End date: 2017-09-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1271623.0
EU funding (EUR): 1271623.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Strongly coupled systems comprise some of the most difficult and important problems in physics, from high temperature superconductivity, to quantum chromodynamics, to gravity at the Planck scale. Understanding even the most basic questions about these systems --- such as the phase structure or the relevant degrees of freedom --- remains a challenge. It is necessary to introduce new, imaginative techniques to tackle these problems. In the past decade, several new ideas have emerged from research in string theory. While string theory is often paraded as a “theory of everything”, a less trumpeted facet is the way in which is gives new perspectives to study more down to earth systems, in particular the strongly coupled phases of quantum field theories. The goal of this project is to develop these techniques to extract information about strongly coupled quantum field theories, both relativistic and non-relativistic, including theories at conformal points and those with a mass gap. The focus is on the application of gauge/gravity duality to new arenas. However, we will also explore the constraints imposed by supersymmetry on non-relativistic systems. These results will be important for communities interested in quantum field theory, string theory, and condensed matter physics.

Keywords: holography and ads/cft,strong interactions.
Non Perturbative Renormalization Group Theory of Glassy Systems (NPRGGLASS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-11-01
End date: 2017-10-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1010800.0
EU funding (EUR): 1010800.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Glassy systems are central in several fields from statistical mechanics and soft matter to material sciences and biophysics and they appear even in completely different areas of science such as information theory, computer science, agent-based models and game theory. The aim of this project is to develop a new, possibly groundbreaking, approach to glassy systems based on the non-perturbative renormalization group (NPRG) formalism. Modern theoretical approaches to glassy systems suffer from severe limitations; it is not clear whether and how one can improve them, and their current status is far from providing a coherent and satisfactory theory. For reasons detailed below, I believe that the NPRG approach is the long-sought theoretical framework to tackle the glass problem and that it will eventually lead to its solution. I will focus on the problem of the glass transition and the physics of glass-forming liquids. I expect that the progress we will make in this direction will also be instrumental also for other glassy systems such as spin glasses, quantum glasses and jamming systems.

Keywords: glassy systems,glass transition
Enzyme catalysis in organic solvents (EOS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical sciences
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2017-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1390800.0
EU funding (EUR): 1390800.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Enzymes are remarkably efficient catalysts and their recent use in non-aqueous organic solvents is opening a tremendous range of applications in synthetic chemistry: since, surprisingly, most enzymes do not denature in these non-natural environments, new reactions involving e.g. water-insoluble reagents can be catalyzed, while unwanted degradation side reactions are suppressed. However, a key challenge for these applications is to overcome the greatly reduced catalytic activity compared to aqueous conditions. Empirically, adding activators such as salts or small amounts of water dramatically enhances the activity, but the underlying mechanisms have remained elusive, thus preventing a rational optimization. Through analytic modeling and numerical simulations, our project will provide the first atomic-scale detailed description of enzyme catalysis in organic solvents, including the key role of the environment. We will then use this unprecedented molecular insight to design rigorous new procedures for the rational engineering of systems with dramatically enhanced activities, both through optimized choices of solvents and additives, and through targeted protein mutations. Specifically, we will first rigorously establish the influence of enzyme flexibility on catalytic activity through an original model accounting for the dynamic disorder arising from conformation fluctuations. Second, we will provide the first molecular explanation of the commonly invoked “lubricating” action of added water. Third, the underlying mechanism of the much employed salt-induced activation will be determined, probably calling for a radical change from the currently used picture of a water-mediated action. Far-reaching practical impacts are expected for the numerous industrial syntheses already employing biocatalysis in non-aqueous media.

Keywords: enzyme catalysis,molecular dynamics,qm/mm,solvent coordinate,transition state theory,water dynamics,ions
Fundamental Physics at the Low Background Frontier (DARKFRONTIER)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2017-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1063173.6
EU funding (EUR): 1063173.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The nature of dark matter is one of the fundamental questions in physics today. Direct signals for dark matter have remained elusive, indicating that multi-tonne scale detectors are needed to measure large numbers of dark matter interactions, while current efforts are at the 100 kg scale. The foremost challenge is distinguishing dark matter signals from backgrounds, the most uncertain of which are from neutrons. The research objective of this proposal is a world-leading dark matter search with a novel liquid argon (LAr) detector and a new analysis approach to measuring neutron backgrounds in-situ. The DEAP/CLEAN program of single-phase LAr detectors is a new direction for dark matter searches. It draws on successful, proven approaches of solar neutrino physics to building low-background detectors that scale simply to multi-tonne target masses. Demonstration of this approach by the current 100 kg stage (MiniCLEAN) will break new ground for future experiments. At the 100 tonne scale, such a detector would be a new kind of observatory for fundamental physics at the low background frontier, testing predicted properties of dark matter, neutrinos, supernovae, and stellar evolution. Success depends critically on demonstrating the required background suppression. This proposal addresses the key challenges of dark matter detection in two new ways, with the novel single-phase effort for multi-tonne scalability, and by developing new methods to overcome neutron backgrounds. The tasks of this proposal are: (i) to develop a measurement of the in-situ neutron background in LAr; (ii) to develop an active neutron veto for in-situ measurement of the cosmogenic neutron background, beginning with a measurement of the flux and energy spectrum in an existing prototype; and, (iii) to lead the dark matter search, using the measured backgrounds. The MiniCLEAN dark matter sensitivity is a factor of 20 beyond current experimental results, with great potential for discovery.

Keywords: particle astrophysics,dark matter direct detection
Structure and Bonding at Oxide-Liquid Interfaces (STRUBOLI)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Physical and Analytical Chemical sciences
Countries involved: Austria,Germany
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-12-01
End date: 2016-11-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1571154.0
EU funding (EUR): 1571154.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The understanding of interfacial chemistry requires knowledge of interface properties at the atomic scale. Surface science studies provided microscopic details from surfaces in vacuum environment and electrochemists followed up to show that similar details might be obtained from electrode-electrolyte interfaces. For mineral-solution interfaces, however, our knowledge is still almost exclusively based on macroscopic observations. With the current project we take one step further toward a fundamental understanding of structure and bonding at oxide-liquid interfaces. For this purpose we will study the properties of water at the oxide-aqueous solution interface and its dependence on the chemical nature of different adsorbates, pH, and electrical potential. The latter can be applied because we are using metal-supported, single-crystalline oxide thin films as substrates. A combination of solid-liquid in-situ scanning tunnelling microscopy and sum-frequency generation spectroscopy together with ultrahigh vacuum-based analytical methods allows us to analyze adsorbate structure and chemical nature of the interface in detail. The structure-forming ability of adsobates will be inferred from vibrational relaxation studies. Finally, vibrational energy transfer from water into the adsorbate will provide details about intermolecular coupling at the interface.

Keywords: oxide-solution interface,thin oxide films,sum frequency generation,dynamics,scanning tunneling microscopy,adsorption
Crystallisation Systems Engineering – Towards a next generation of intelligent crystallisation systems (CRYSYS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-09-01
End date: 2017-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1263702.27
EU funding (EUR): 1263702.27
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The project proposes the development of an intelligent crystallisation system by combining state-of-the-art process analytical technologies and novel model-based and statistical feedback control approaches, to provide a fully integrated and adaptive system for efficient engineering of particulate products. The developed adaptive and robust control approaches will be incorporated in a Crystallisation Process Informatics System, to provide an intelligent decision support system, which triggers the suitable control algorithm taking into account the effect of crystallisation on the downstream processing units and final product properties. In this way crystallisation becomes a key intelligent “process actuator” in the whole production system, that manipulates final properties of the solid product taking into account operational, regulatory and economic constraints of the entire process, opening the way towards novel product engineering approaches. The project will bring the implementation of a new generation of integrated, intensified and intelligent crystallisation systems with drastically improved flexibility, predictability, stability and controllability. The system will be used for detailed evaluation of the current paradigm shift from batch to continuous processes in the pharmaceutical industries. Besides providing a breakthrough in crystallisation science the results could revolutionise the methods in which crystallisation will be designed and controlled in the future, yielding to the development of the emerging research field of Pharmaceutical Systems Engineering, by providing a comprehensive framework for the development of novel integrated pharmaceutical production units and product engineering technologies, for sustainable pharmaceutical production, with the aim of reducing time-to-market and increasing product quality, therefore providing considerable increase in quality of life, for example, by making new products available more quickly and at lower cost.

Keywords: crystallisation,pharmaceutical engineering,process analytical technologies
Ultimate measurement of the W boson mass with ATLAS, at the LHC (UMWA)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Fundamental constituents of matter
Countries involved: France
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2011-10-01
End date: 2016-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1259760.0
EU funding (EUR): 1259760.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Widely advertised as a discovery machine, the LHC proton collider at CERN will also provide large samples of standard particles, allowing the final, most precise experimental determination of some fundamental parameters of particle physics theory. Together with the expected discoveries, these measurements will allow to elucidate the dynamics of electroweak symmetry breaking. The aim of the present project is to organize and realize a precise measurement of the W resonance parameters, and in particular the W boson mass with a target precision below 0.01%. Most LHC measurements aim at a precision of order 1%, and can be performed on a time scale of about one year, within a small group of collaborators. The measurement of the W boson mass is a special case, as its aimed precision requires perfect understanding of the experimental and physical environment. It therefore requires careful planning. Intermediate measurements of standard processes need to be performed, synchronized, and will play a key role in the final result. The primary tools serving this purpose are the study of the production properties of the J/Psi, W and Z particles in the uncertain LHC environment. These studies will allow to understand the performance of the ATLAS detector and to constrain the dynamics of proton-proton interactions, which represent a major source of uncertainty. Once the above properties are firmly established, the distributions sensitive to the W boson mass can be precisely predicted, and the fundamental parameters can be determined. The coordinator of this project has recognized expertise on electroweak physics, and has led the ATLAS Collaboration's research in this field since 2007. As argued above, the preparation of the measurement of mW requires to build and coordinate a team devoted to the realization of this difficult measurement over the next years. The present grant would provide a unique opportunity to gather all necessary conditions for the success of this project.

Keywords: w resonance.
Energy-Efficient Multi-Terabit/s Photonic Interconnects (ENTERAPIC)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Systems and communication engineering
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2011-StG_20101014, 2011)
Start date: 2012-01-01
End date: 2016-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1498800.0
EU funding (EUR): 1498800.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The rapid growth of data traffic requires radically new approaches for high-speed data transmission to increase the bandwidth and power efficiency by orders of magnitude. The proposed research aims at novel system and device concepts for low-energy high-capacity optical interconnects in data centers. Data rates of 10 Tbit/s and beyond are envisaged by coherent multicarrier transmission. Parametric frequency conversion in high-Q Kerr-nonlinear resonators will be used to generate broadband combs of frequency-locked optical carriers. Integrated silicon photonic systems will allow for power-efficient multichannel modulation and detection. Novel reconfigurable optical signal processors will avoid excessive digital post-processing and hence reduce overall energy consumption.

Keywords: optical communications,energy-efficient communications,integrated optics,nanophotonics,silicon photonics,silicon-organic hybrid,frequency combs