Rare earths are now essential to advanced technologies and "Green growth" but the strong development of these areas blew the demand for these metals. So damaging for Europe china almost completely controls their production. Prior to imagine a full substitution of these metals it is necessary to quickly reduce tensions in this market to consider recycling from industrial waste. These wastes containing these rare earths are now described as «urban mines". This recycling from waste is already operating in France on an industrial level (by Rhodia) with mechanical and physical processes finalized ( after dissolution in acid medium ) by liquid- liquid extraction. The ICMMO and IRAMIS laboratories propose here an innovative process that may be efficient for the recycling industry. It concern to complete and/or to replace of the usual liquid-liquid extraction technology of these metals by a solid-liquid technology much more easily and may even, after evaluation, to be more efficient. The principle of the transition between the two technologies can be presented simply. There are molecular materials with high specificity able to complex efficiently metal ions. In a liquid-liquid extraction those molecular materials are dispersed and exchanged between the liquid phases but the final separation is complex and multi-stepped. The recent possibility to immobilize these molecular materials on solid surfaces lead to directly capture target ions whose future separation from the liquid will be much simpler. To the above mentioned economic aspects which are already an important part of the problem are now added by environmental and public health problems. As well as the risks involved with heavy metals already well known as copper, nickel and especially now by hexavalent chromium, toxicity of rare earths until recently ignored would join the list of metals already subject to regulation. It becomes really critical to prepare alternative management techniques. Both partners have a common and recent laboratory experience of this extraction/concentration technological leap applied for effluents containing cesium (nuclear applications). Still earlier IRAMIS has experience in the industrial reprocessing of liquid wastes from surface treatment industries (Cu , Zn , Ni) . It would be in this program to build on these past experiences and benefit to the problem of recycling of rare earths this expertise. The aim of this program is to get with the recycling of rare earths level demonstration laboratory scale (TRL 3-4) that would be relevant enough to launch programs aimed at greater technological readiness level (TRL 5-6). At the end of the program designed to "stimulate industrial revival" a development strategy is already expected. Partnerships with industry and government stakeholders are taking place and the creation of a company is also envisaged.

REMIND is focussed on multifunctional ultrathin organic films with mixed electronic and ionic conductivity and on emerging devices as defined in the ITRS roadmap within the resistive memory theme. It develops building blocks that can be used in high added value domains and are upstream for nanoelectronic and nanoelectroionic components. It addresses fundamental issues raised by electrochemistry in solid state nano-devices. We propose to explore the new concepts which apply when the thickness of organic films in devices is in the 5-20 nanometer range. Indeed below such 5 nm thickness, electronic transport is governed by non-resonant tunnelling whereas above 20 nm, thermally activated hopping between molecules dominates. Since the 5-20 thickness range is much shorter than that in today’s organic electronic devices and since device thickness is of the same order of magnitude compared to scattering, hopping lengths and charge carrier sizes, the electronic transport in REMIND will be truly “nanoscale” and mainly intramolecular. As a consequence transport will be almost activation-less and potentially ultrafast. Since this thickness range is above the non-resonant tunneling limit, the transport will also be truly molecular and much more sensitive to the structural and electronic properties of the molecules in the layer. By creating multifunctional molecular films 5-20 nm thick and by exploiting, phenomena not available with silicon or organic electronic devices, namely redox events and ultrafast ion motion within ultrathin layers, we thus seek to provide low cost, low energy consumption electronic and opto-electronic functions including giant rectification and nonvolatile memory with possibly widespread applications. The fabrication process of the organic layers used in REMIND is based on electro-generated radical grafting processes using diazonium salt reduction. In the present proposal it is a key technology that makes possible the direct evaporation of various metals on the grafted organic layer in order to fabricate the top electrode through fully CMOS compatible processes. The use of such robust layers will avoid that of Self Assembled Monolayers (SAM), widely developed by many scientific groups worldwide, but unable to withstand direct evaporation of metals. The project clearly moves away from SAMs. It also moves away from single molecule devices as reliability and reproducibility cannot be obtained with such devices. The proposed approach is thus based on a molecular electronic platform which tackles the principal limitations of the field (robustness, variability...) and is “manufacturable” in a massively parallel format, and tolerant of operating temperatures of today’s microelectronic. The proposed efforts represent a major step away from the “classic molecular electronics” operative when the device thickness is below 5 nm toward “realistic molecular electronics” which exploits phenomena not possible with conventional semiconductors.

Since the revival of the Li-Air technology by K.M. Abraham in 1996 using non-aqueous electrolyte, this technology has been foreseen as the savior by the automobile industry, generating a worldwide competition at an academic level supported by private funding (Toyota or IBM for instance) and public agencies such as the Department of Energy as well as with the creation of startups such as Liox Power or PolyPlus Battery for instance. Even though considerable progresses have been made in the last years, the battery community realizes that Li-O2 cells have a long way to go before to be commercialized: a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms at play during the cycling is necessary. Hence, international groups at the forefront of this field such as Bruce’s, Nazar’s, McCloskey’s, Shao-Horn’s, Gasteiger’s, Janek’s groups and others are currently placing a lot of efforts on understanding the effect of solvent properties on the discharge product formation as well as the use of redox mediators in solution as a way to overcome the large overpotential encountered during the charge. Our approach in ECCENTRIC project is in line with this worldwide push for knowledge creation regarding the physico-chemical processes upon cycling. Nevertheless, while other groups are largely focusing on the understanding of the solvent influence on the cycling properties, only few has been done concerning the understanding of the electroactive material functioning and this project aim to fill this gap with an in depth study of the electrode impact on the charge/discharge mechanism. Thus, the ECCENTRIC project starts with fundamental researches on air electrodes, further used to develop new materials electrodes for positive electrode for Li-Air batteries. The aim of ECCENTRIC is to demonstrate that viable metal-air battery can be developed following an innovation-through-science approach, involving the acquisition of new knowledges and understandings of the science underpinning the lithium-air batteries. The ECCENTRIC consortium involves three well-recognized fundamental research groups that will put together their complementary skills in Surface science and Nanosciences (CEA LICSEN partner), Material science and Processing (LCMCP) and batteries testing and characterization as well as chemistry (Collège de France UMR UMR 8260) to develop new materials and study their catalytic and electronic properties from single building block to their assembly into complex 2D and 3D network. The building blocks will be assembled in interpenetrated networks or through core/shell structures thanks to electrospinning, a simple and upscalable technique. Li-Air batteries tests made in real cycling conditions will guide the finding of the most suitable parameters for the discharge/charge processes. The project opens new avenues to other fields, such as Na-Air systems, electrode nanostructuration, as well as multiphase transport and reactivity.

A major boost in photovoltaic power conversion efficiency can be achieved from combining different solar cells with complementary absorption ranges. However the challenge is to make such tandem solar cells with high efficiency at low production cost, with the major barrier being a low-cost, good quality, large bandgap material. The past three years have seen the rapid emergence of a new class of solar cells based on hybrid perovskite materials with efficiency up to 20%. Perovskites are ideal candidates to make tandem solar cells with silicon bottom cells since they use low deposition cost and the band gap can be tuned advantageously. However, the pairing with high quality monocrystalline silicon is not evident, as the relative increase in efficiency (above the 25.6% available in the lab) may not offset the increase cost. The PERSIL project aims to investigate and develop the potential of these new perovskite-based solar cells as well as their application in tandem devices in combination with low-cost nanocrystalline-silicon bottom cells. The main objectives of PERSIL are 1) fabrication and characterization of perovskite cells, 2) fabrication and characterization of silicon/perovskite tandem cells with efficiency up to 25%, 3) investigation of the tandem cell stability and scalability.

Pi-Conjugated oligomers and polymers based on a planar backbone of sp2-bonded carbon atoms have attracted increasing interest in recent years owing to their potential application for electronic devices. For example, light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) for display based on polymer technology are commercialized since 2002. However, research in this field is still needed especially toward the development of optimized materials for white-LEDs. This type of devices is of tremendous interest since they can potentially replace traditional incandescent white light sources generating enormous energy saving. The aim of this project is the development of highly luminescent hybrids which can be used for the development of optoelectronic devices like light-emitting diodes (LEDs). To develop these new materials, we will graft Aggregation-Induced Emission organic fluorophores (AIE) on inorganic nanoparticles like ZnO, ZrO2... The grafting, via an anchoring group part of the pi-system, will concentrate a large number of chromophores at the surface and particularly freeze the motion of the molecules to reduce non-radiative deactivations. One of our objectives concerns the development of a synthetic method, easy to implement, reproducible and permits to obtain large quantities of modified nanoparticles. In particular, phospholes, siloles and tetraphenylethylene, which AIE properties have already been demonstrated on “all organic” system will be studied. One objective will be to prepare AIE fluorophores emitting different wavelengths in the visible range. Furthermore, we will study in detail the interactions between the organic fluorophore and the nanoparticle by varying different parameters (nature and position of the grafting function, shape of the nanoparticle (sphere, rod...), and introduction of different substituents on the fluorophore). Finally, introduction of these new hybrid materials with tunable emission into specific LEDs structures using wet techniques to simplify the manufacturing processes of these devices is the main target of the project to develop white LEDs for lighting.