Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient and major economic factor. The EU covers its demands by importing Phosphate rock listed as critical raw material due to its scarce resource. Sewage sludge from waste water treatment plants is a promising alternative source of P. RECaPhos focuses on development of a novel method for phosphorus recovery based on the thermo-chemical reaction of sewage sludge, in the presence of CaO in a fluidized-bed reactor, assuring in the same time the destroy of dangerous pathogens, antibiotics and contaminations. Goal is to develop, optimize, and evaluate the novel method and to provide rules and data for process up scaling purposes. This will be achieved by means of development of innovative models to investigate the thermodynamic and chemical process taking place. Experimental data from host institution facilities and data from literature will be used for models validation and optimization. The results will be used as a basis for the design of a demo plant as well as for the identification/evaluation of the process economics and commercialization potential. Two reference cases will be studied, one for a new plant and one for a retrofit of an existing fluidized bed combustion plant. Comparison with other competitive processes will be realized. RECaPHOS is original, highly innovative, and ambitious since the same cheap widely available, natural, non toxic, and environmental friendly Ca-based material is used for P adsorption and subsequent P recycling as it is directly used as feedstock for fertilizer production, closing a natural cycle. RECaPHOS is an excellent and unique opportunity for the researcher who is a mother of two daughters to restart her career after more than 4 years of career break prior to call deadline due to maternity and after resettling back to Europe/Germany after a 3 years continuous stay outside Europe in the last 5 years, in a highly innovative non-profit academic institution that supports women and work life balance.

Severe droughts are predicted to increase in intensity and frequency, leading to unprecedented ecological and economic risks for forest health and productivity. There is an urgent need to adapt forest management to the anticipated uncertain future climatic conditions to limit impacts for ecosystems and economy. Such adaptation plans hinge on a deep understanding of the complex mechanisms regulating forest ecosystem responses, including tree mortality related to drought. We will examine the interactive effects of drought and tree population density on the resistance and resilience of tree growth, and the ecophysiological mechanisms contributing to the drought response of Norway spruce (Picea abies) and silver fir (Abies alba), two keystone species for European forestry. The results will serve as input for economic risk assessments of these two tree species under different management and climate-change scenarios. We will implement a novel and interdisciplinary research approach by combining growth and yield analyses, dendrochronology, and ecophysiological mechanistic modeling, converging into an economic riskassessment at different spatial (tree- to regional-level) and temporal (intra-annual to decadal) scales. The study will take advantage of a large dataset from long-term experimental management stands in Baden- Württemberg, Germany, and will be complemented with sites in France and Switzerland – together an outstanding dataset for Central European forests. The outcomes of this powerful framework will contribute to developing efficient management policies for adapting Norway spruce and silver fir forests to increasing drought-related risks. This may be also validated in other forest ecosystems across Europe. The project will be managed by experienced researchers from the NFZ.forestnet, and will connect six research institutions from Zürich (CH), Freiburg (D), and Nancy (F), to a strong scientific network with wellestablished stakeholder contacts in Central Europe.

The storage of electricity produced by intermittent renewable sources is the bottleneck of the transition towards a fully green energy landscape. Besides technical suitability, the stationary storage with battery technologies applied to buffer the temporal mismatch between electricity production and demand have to comply with very tight economic constraints to be competitive with fossil fuel combustion technologies, to allow for further nurturing of a sustainable energy transition. Moreover, sensitive aspects concerning the secured supply of critical raw materials and the strategic technological independence are now at the forefront of the discussions and need to be addressed natively to any battery technology to be developed. The consortium for ZABSES project brings the partners together from both sides of the Rhine; and proposes to setup the basis for an innovative European-based practical solution. The ZABSES project aims at demonstrating that a rechargeable alkaline zinc – air battery (ZAB) technology, being made of abundant, environmentally friendly, intrinsically safe and robust materials, without issues for recycling step and presenting auspicious life cycle costs, could be more advantageous than state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries for the stationary electricity storage. The objective of this project is to demonstrate, with the construction of a prototype (TRL 4), that such battery technology will fulfil requirements in terms of load profiles for the energy storage for residential and grid renewable production. This objective relies on promising preliminary results already gained by the partners involved in the project namely: (i) from Sunergy a solution for the zinc electrode based on the development of a NiZn battery, making 2000 cycles at 100% depth of discharge, and a zinc electrode for ZAB with a surface capacity up to 400 mAh·cm-2, (ii) a consolidated approach for bi-functional air electrode with 150 load cycles at 10 mA/cm2 (and during 2h charge and 2h discharge)in half cell tests, from ZSW. Starting from TRL 2-3, bi-functional air cathode charge-discharge capability has to be improved greatly. An iterative and integrated approach, joining experiment and modelling, will be adopted to develop cutting-edge materials and electrode architecting, to secure the output and to unveil a deeper understanding of electrode processes down to the atomic scale level, this within the framework of battery cell prototype. The French-German consortium gathers together the University of Cergy-Pontoise’s laboratory LPPI (France), the non-profit research institution ZSW (Germany) at the interface between University and Industry, the R&D SME Sunergy (France), the Research Institute Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt / Helmholtz-Institut Ulm (Germany) and the company Varta Microbattery GmbH for a concerted development of a performant rechargeable ZAB prototype.

Emission-free transport is a fundamental pillar for the energy transition towards a green energy landscape. Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs), using hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2), are at the forefront of the portfolio of practical solutions that are emerging on the market. However, Europe, and a fortiori France and Germany, has to develop a strategic positioning for research and development to maintain in-house the manufacturing of advanced and strategic technologies involved in the energy transition and thus preserve its independence; unlike as, e.g., batteries and solar panels production in spite of large investments. The present project proposal aims at identifying and unlocking obstacles limiting the implementation of promising O2 reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst materials, identified after fundamental and model investigations in well-controlled laboratory conditions, into efficient PEMFC cathodes. To this goal, a library of materials composed of state-of-the-art ORR nanocatalysts (octahedral, cubic, hollow, nanowires and spongy) will be built, and the synthesis processes will be scaled-up in a stepwise manner to reach volumetric quantities allowing MEAs manufacturing. The (i) structure and the chemistry of these nanocatalysts and (ii) the ionomer content and distribution within the cathode structure will be determined at each step of the membrane-electrodes assembly (MEA) manufacturing to rationalize changes of performance in model and real PEMFC systems. A specific diagnostic toolbox, combining advanced experimental techniques and modelling, will be specifically developed and the output of this toolbox will be used to adapt the ink formulation from which the MEAs are manufactured (catalyst content and chemistry, ionomer content and chemistry, solvent composition, use of additives). Strategies to mitigate issues related to low density of catalytic sites (highly-active ORR nanocatalysts usually feature large crystallite size), incomplete wetting of the catalyst by the ionomer and poor accessibility for O2 to the catalytic sites will be also developed. Finally, accelerated stress tests (ASTs) will be carried out. After characterisation, the results of these tests will help rationalizing why the degradation mechanisms may be different in simulated and real PEMFC operating conditions. Ultimately, the key findings of the project will be transferred to Heraeus and Symbio for industrial development. The ambitious research program proposed in the frame of the BRIDGE project requires efforts of scientific teams with broad interdisciplinary expertise in chemistry and physics, materials science and engineering. Therefore, this proposal brings together two groups at LEPMI/CNRS and ZSW, and two industrial partners Heraeus and Symbio. LEPMI/CNRS will use its expertise in the synthesis of ORR nanocatalysts and electrocatalysis using model electrodes to understand the structural, compositional and morphological changes occurring during elaboration of MEAs, while the ZSW group will engineer them to implement them in real-life PEMFC. The two industrial partners, Heraeus and Symbio, are a well-established catalyst materials manufacturer and an automotive equipment supplier designing and developing a large range of PEMFC related products, from specifically designed MEAs to a few hundreds kW systems, for electric vehicles, respectively. The BRIDGE project thus covers all the facets of a critical technology that is expected to grow further for the development of independent European-based solutions in the field of sustainable energy transition. It also intends to setup solid foundations for future original contributions from the French-German consortium in the field of PEMFCs electrodes technology/concepts, and its transfer towards the European industry.