INFINITY will develop an inorganic alternative to a scarce and high cost material, indium tin oxide (ITO), currently used as a Transparent Conductive Coating (TCC) for display electrodes on glass and plastic substrates. The novel conductive materials to be developed in this project will be based on low cost sol-gel chemistry using more widely available metallic elements and will leverage recent advances in nanostructured coatings. Novel printing procedures will also be developed to enable direct writing of multi and patterned nano-layers, removing the waste associated with etch patterning.

Infectious diseases pose a significant threat to both human health and the global economy, they account for more than 20% of global mortality and viruses are responsible for about one-third of these deaths. To date, we know of about 200 infectious diseases and about 80% of infectious diseases are transmitted by unclean hands touching contaminated surfaces. SUSAAN project is focussed on development of new sustainable antiviral and antimicrobial coatings for textiles and high traffic objects made of plastics and metal, involving textile, bathrooms and switches manufacture industries. In this context, it can be stated that most of the common hand-touch sites and/or objects are covered by the project so final impact would be extensive after the successful project execution, being the results of the project validated in three main market sectors through end users. Consortium Partners and core business are one of the strongest points of SUSAAN. Technological and scientific partners (LUREDERRA, NCSRD, IVW, CEIT and ITENE) are experts on main areas of nanoparticles, coatings, pretreatment, biobased nanocapsules and toxicity assessment. Companies involved cover the whole value change based on their core business including coatings production (TECNAN), biobased products (CELABOR), bathrooms manufacturing (ECZACIBASI), home appliances (PANASONIC) and textiles (ALMAXTEX). Last but not least, INTER IT will cover the activities on BPR assessment being VIRHEALTH (the expert on virology) on charge of standardized testing to determine virucidal and antimicrobial activity of the coatings and ARDITEC on charge of sustainability assessment. The final outcome of SUSAAN project is the validation of the new sustainable antimicrobial/antiviral nanocoating in different final products: high traffic objects (plastic and metallic) and textiles. Technical advantages and comparative results to current solutions will be used to present SUSAAN solutions to potential clients.

When compared to fossil fuels only one decisive disadvantage remains for electricity from solar cells and wind mills, namely the difficulty to store this energy in very large quantities and in high energy density. State of the art batteries have a low energy density, and, in addition, cannot handle the needed quantities of energy. In principle, fuel cells could store huge quantities of energy and in in high energy density, but these are not very efficient and, moreover, rely on expensive materials. We want to develop a novel screening method to find efficient fuel cells that rely on cheap materials. KIT developed a novel multi-material nano3D printer that generates ~40.000 nanostacks per glass slide with freely chosen sequential arrangements of printed nanolayers that are made of nanoparticles or organic materials. We want to use this robot to print conductors, isolators, diodes, battery-, fuel cell-, and LED-materials, and then screen ~15.000 twin-nanostacks per glass slide for function. We will start with diodes that are made of a ZnO layer on top of ITO nanoparticles. When positioned in between two capacitor plates, an AC current will drive electrons unidirectional through all of these nanostack-diodes from where they travel back through the adjacent twin nanostack. If this twin nanostack is a functional battery, reduced battery materials are identified in a scanner, while functional LED nanostacks identify themselves through emitted light. Functional LED- or battery-nanostacks will then be used to identify those nanostacks that work as a fuel cell. We think that this new method will advance materials research beyond the screening for novel energy materials.

Nanomaterials a found more and more often in our everyday life, whether it is in the food industry, the transport, medical devices, building materials or cosmetics. If the small size of these objects confers them unprecedented properties, it also facilitates the absorption of these nanoparticles by the organs of living beings. Thus a major stake in the development of the nanoindustrial industry in Europe stands in the effective control of nanoproducts at all stages of production in order to certify the nanomaterials at the light of a set of relevant properties, not only towards the targeted final applications, but also in a prospect to answer better the regulations to come regarding risk bound to the placing on the market of nanoproducts. The caracterisation challenge not only consists of getting the chemical composition, the mean size and size distribution of the raw and processed materials, but also targets properties such as their shape, their surface, their crystal structure or the presence of trace non-desired elements. Our approach aims at implementing a fast, reliable and integrable multi-technical module of characterization inserted within industrial processes of production. Our objective is to shorten significantly the times of development and, hence, to take part in te improvement of the industrial efficiency of the sector in Europe. We also pay a particular attention on the economy of resources, raw materials and energy, as well as in the problems of recycling and stability in time. Thus, besides a substantial gain of competitiveness, we also look for a significant advances in the field of the quality control and standardisation of nanomaterials along their whole life cycle, in order to answer the justifiable expectations of the society in terms of public health. The strategy of the envisaged consortium bases on the follow-up of the production of metallic nanoparticles, oxides and carbide shaped in the state of divided solid or thin films following the ascending strategy of nano-assembly (bottom up). Owing to the diversity of composition and structure of the targeted nanomaterials, our project embraces the whole nanoindustrial sector and potential markets in Europe. Besides the follow-up of the production of nano-objects, we also address intermediats's' production such as suspensions of nanoparticles in a solvent, functionalised nanostructured products as well as in several final applications. The in situ characterisation of nanomanufacturing processes is the central activity of the aimed AAP. So, the consortium is organized around an academic team specialised in the in situ and operando characterisation at UCCS-LILLE, coordinator of the project, and the company, HORIBA, who markets solutions of analysis at the nanoscale. To every class of nano-objects corresponds a combination of specific characterisation techniques . To this end, the proposed consortium gathers several laboratories and research teams public recognized for their expertise in the field of the synthesis and the characterisation of every targeted class of nanomaterials: nanoparticles oxide (TiO2, SiO2 ...), metallic nanoparticles and carbon nano-objects: nanotubes of carbon, graphene. The project also involves the preparation of tailored reference materials, and their comprehensive characterisation for being implemented in an open access database and establish correlations between the way of preparation and the final physico-chemical properties of the nanomaterials. The scaling up of the developed characterisation tools and their fitting to the requirements of an industrial production line will be supported by the commitement of the SME TECNAN, specialised in the production and the marketing of functional products involving nanoparticles.