Overview Workshop
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INNOVATION FOR THE ENERGY TRANSITION September 22 - 23 |
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In recent years, the negative impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on our planet’s climate has motivated a progressive transition from a global energy scenario heavily reliant on fossil fuels to one based on environmentally benign, renewable energy sources. Several studies highlighted that advanced nanomaterials and nanotechnology have the potential to achieve a breakthrough in the development of novel applications for a sustainable future and for the energy transition. This session gathers contributions from both the academic and industrial world to strengthen their synergistic contribution to technological growth for sustainability. Renewable energy sources produce energy following a mostly unpredictable pattern, linked to meteorological winds and clouds. However, the energy network is rigid and production must closely match consumption daily curves. That implies the necessity to store the mismatched generated energy for later use, a technologically advanced, industrially demanding and scientifically challenging task. Electrochemical energy storage can help to some extent but it is not suited for long term high power GW systems. Hydrogen can be seen as an ideal energy vector, that faces however the issue of storage and requires efficient generation and compression. While the long-term solution is abandoning fossil fuels for renewable sources, it has been shown that in the short-to-medium term conventional fuels will still be used and CO2 emissions will have to be compensated for. In this scenario, one of the most interesting and challenging strategies to mitigate the disastrous effect of carbon dioxide on earth’s climate, is to consider CO2 as valuable raw material to obtain value-added fuels and chemicals through its photo/electrochemical reduction (CO2RR). The key challenge for this application is to develop highly selective, stable, efficient, environmental-friendly and inexpensive photo/electrocatalysts. Combining H2 and CO2 technologies is also emerging as a positive strategy for a progressive and economically sustainable energy transition, capable to reduce fuels’ impact on the environment, while still granting their use where necessary. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the scenario appears strategically suited for Italy, that has several mayor and technologically advanced gas industries, a capillary methane distribution system and erratic meteorological patterns while it has abandoned the alternative nuclear energy. LCA is finally vital to understand if technologies proposed by researchers are, however fascinating for the layman and for the legislator, overall counterproductive for the planet. In all the boiling mix of ideas that are currently emerging in the landscape, we suggest that a few major, plurennial, country size, research programs should be activated for exploiting some long term technological and scientific developments in the field. |
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WS.II
INNOVATIVE APPROACHES IN UNMET CLINICAL NEEDS
September 22
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In this day, different actors (academia, industry, regulatory) will discuss and describe the development of innovative and enabling technologies for facing unmet clinical needs, varying from diagnosis to therapeutic aims. In line with Horizon Europe pipelines, pathological focuses will be devoted on cancer, brain related diseases, cardiovascular pathologies. A comprehensive overview of the recent and established innovation in health technologies will be highlighted with a special focus on several aspects strongly impacting on the success of innovation approaches and its application into clinical setting and shown by different sides of view, from design, to materials, characterization, production and scale up, ending to successful stories of yet approved and on market technologies. |
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WS.III AGRINANOTECHNIQUES
September 22
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With the world’s population expected to exceed nine billion by 2050, scientists are working to develop new ways to meet rising global demand for food, energy and water without increasing the strain on natural resources and the environmental pressure. Organizations including the World Bank, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, as well as the EU F2F and Green Deal strategies are calling for more innovation to address the challenges of the agri-food sector. The development of AgriNanoTechniques has been started very recently; they will be implemented within the evolving science of precision agriculture, in which farmers use technology to target their use of water, fertilizer, plant protection products and other inputs. A second, broad potential application concerns the issues of reduction and valorization of agri-food wastes. The introduction of nanotechnologies in agriculture still need deepen basic and applied knowledge, however several promising results were achieved, so far. A huge development is taking place in this sector, therefore nanotech applications currently under development will soon be overtaken by other ideas that are expected to contribute to solve several issues in the field of sustainable agriculture. NanoInnovation 2021 hosts the 5th edition of the workshop “AgriNanoTechniques” co-organized by the Universities of Udine, Tuscia, and the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS). The workshop will be the forum for discussing the perspective of nanotechnologies in the primary sector among the stakeholders and scientific research. |
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WS.IV COMPETITIVE AND RESPONSIBLE INDUSTRY
September 23
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The event focuses on the competitiveness of the Italian industrial research system, toward the challenges and opportunities of the EU New Green Deal and National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Technological innovation shapes our future. The ability of the national private and public research system to take advantage and master the rapid dynamics of technological development and, at the same time, manage its impacts, will be essential to generate value and enhance the competitive position of the country. |
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WS.V NANOSTRUCTURED MATERIALS COMPOSITES AND 2D MATERIALS
September 23
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At the heart of the fascinating field of nanotechnology, there is a class of materials with nanometer-scale dimensions and unique and tailored features: the nanostructured materials. Among these, 2D materials and composites are of considerable relevance in physics, chemistry, engineering and environmental sciences thanks to the possibility of manipulating their structure and tuning their properties. The potential of such materials opens up new frontiers for innovation in these areas of interests. The purpose of this workshop is to connect both young and experienced scientists working in the field of nanostructured materials to share their knowledge and to provide a great opportunity for inspiring discussions and tightening scientific cooperation. The topics cover all aspects of 2D nanostructured materials and composites, including their synthesis and characterizations finalized to fundamental studies, technological integration and present and future applications. |
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WS.VI AEROSPACE (3D Additive Manufacturing & Radiation Damage)
September 22
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WORKSHOP COMMITTEE:
Marco DI CLEMENTE, ASI |
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Aerospace is definitely one of the fields where the impact of innovation is the most important. This is the direct consequence of the need for excellence related to the extreme conditions of operation, the very demanding specifications, the complexity of the equipment and the need for high level of reliability (very low rates of failure). In this session we will present and discuss two of the key technologies for the so-called “: New Space”: a) the use of COTS (components on the shelf) in electronic systems for space applications; b) the extensive use of metallic parts made by additive manufacturing for aerospace.
The New Space denomination indicates a change of paradigm within the business model of the space industry, characterised by a continued democratisation of space technology. This is mainly achieved with a constant decrease of the cost of the launching and of the satellite constellations and a consequent growing need for components with novel functionalities at lower costs. In this configuration the interest for COTS, i.e. components that are not especially conceived to operate in harsh radiative environments (RadHard), is growing considerably. As a consequence, the fact of properly characterising and understanding the limitations and the performance of standard components in a radiation environment gains momentum, with respect to the intention to design specific components dedicated for space. In this kind of perspective, the development of novel testing methodologies and the possibility to have access to opportune nuclear physics facilities to carry on some testing campaigns become strategic. A complete picture around this topic will be provided in the first part of the workshop.
Complementary to the aspects related to embedded electronics, the advanced manufacturing is another topic of primary importance for the future of the race for space. In this respect, Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the absolute game changer. AM offers the possibility to obtain unique shapes that can implement outstanding mechanical performances with reduced weight. Furthermore, AM is ideal when small series of pieces with very high added value are conceived, and when a continuous product development is envisaged. For these reasons, the second part of the workshop will be dedicated to the AM of metallic parts. The challenges related with the manufacturing will be discussed, but also the characterisation methodologies. |
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