Dr Nicolas Boscher;
Credit: LIST
The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) has announced that one of its researchers, Dr Nicolas Boscher, recently received an ERC Consolidator grant.
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Dr Nicolas Boscher with an ERC Consolidator grant. Dr Boscher will receive €1.9 million in funding over the next five years for the CLEANH2 project entitled "Chemical Engineering of Fused MetalloPorphyrins Thin Films for the Clean Production of Hydrogen".
Faced with the current worldwide energy and environmental crisis, the CLEANH2 project aims to develop a new class of materials for the clean and efficient production of hydrogen from "solar water splitting". Whilst this has been implemented naturally for over three billion years on a global scale and from abundant and sustainable materials, cost-effective artificial photosynthesis remains an unmet challenge.
Dr Nicolas Boscher, from the Materials Research and Technology Department (MRT), will create photocatalytic polymers assembled from chlorophyll-related molecules (porphyrins). The field is still relatively unexplored but if this breakthrough is achieved, it could support a new economy built not on fossil fuels but on hydrogen.
To meet the challenge, Dr Boscher will build on the recent groundbreaking developments achieved within LIST in the framework of the POLYPORPH project, funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund. The overall aim of the POLYPORPH project is to provide a deep understanding of the reactivity of porphyrins in the gas phase and deliver an upscalable route towards the engineering of conductive metal-organic network coatings.
The ERC uses its grants to support outstanding researchers in developing their own projects. To receive ERC grants, applicants must not only demonstrate excellence in research, but also provide evidence of the pioneering nature of their project and its feasibility.
