SPLIT project aims to demonstrate that a technical breakthrough is possible for the improvement of the specific capacity of Li-ion batteries. The first objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of a Lithium-ion battery with a specific energy (by weight or volume) improved by 50 % thanks to the use of new families of negative and positive materials obtained by sputtering and/or PECVD process. The second objective is to validate the sputtering process in replacement of the present manufacturing process for the pasting of negative electrode. The present one is out of its range of use for the thinner electrodes requested by the new material. The use of sputtering process for this industrial purpose is new. This improvement relies on 2 relatively independent achievements : -- one negative electrode at industrial scale, based on silicon, which provides 1400 mAh/g with an average voltage of 0.3 V versus metallic lithium, obtained by sputtering and/or PECVD so as to manufacture simultaneously structured material and electrode ready for battery assembly after size adjustment. -- one positive material at laboratory scale, based on a lithiated transition metal fluoride and an electronic conductive network, sputtered in relatively thin nano-structured layer and performing by conversion reaction at more than 900 Wh/kg ; for example 300 mAh/g with 3.0 V of average voltage. The introduction of new industrial negative electrode is possible alone with at stake a significant gain of 20% in specific energy at battery level. A technico-economic evaluation of an industrial negative is included in the project. SPLIT is spread in three tasks. The task 0 deals with coordination. The task 1 deals with the new silicon based negative electrode and tests in complete cells, which include results of task 2. Eventually, the task 2 deals with the new material for positive electrode. For the tasks 1 and 2, SPLIT involves manufacturing, physico-chemical and electrochemical characterizations and understanding of several varieties of materials so as to select one couple which performs at the requested performances. The communication and the exploitation are defined in the project. SPLIT improves the competitive position of battery and sputtering French industries especially in front of Asian and American ones. It should allow development of these activities in France and also progress in understanding and manufacturing new materials and new principles of reactions which are necessary for the implementation of a breakthrough generation of batteries. The present generation incorporates metal oxides and graphite and has been optimized by incremental action for near 20 years. Targeted markets include professional portable electronics (communication, medical, video), individual or mass transportation by air or earth and renewable energy storage (especially for decentralized photovoltaic systems). The accessibility of the different markets depends on initial performances, duration and achievable cost. SPLIT is in full accordance with the background and the objective of MatetPro-2009 project call : "Functional Materials and Innovative Process". It will gather for 3 years scientific actors ICMCB and IPREM and industrial actors Saft and HEF which have extended knowledge in the fields of herein considered process and materials. It addresses the field of sustainable development by alloying extended use of electrical energy which is recognized for its flexibility and its compatibility with renewable modes of production. At term, storage is an essential complement for the development of photovoltaic and wind electricity production. SPLIT answers directly to one part of thematic axis 1 : Functionalities and associated Materials in title " materials for energy storage or transportation" and subtitle "electrodes for rechargeable batteries". In addition to the thematic axis 1, some aspects of thematic axis 3 : nano-structured materials, organic-inorganic hybrid materials, and also, thematic axis 4 : modelling and numeric simulations, multi-scale approaches, behaviour forecast, are addressed by SPLIT.

Controlling fine-scale surface texture is a new frontier for polymer injection moulding. The requested functionalities may be connected with visual or haptic aspects for consumer goods, or with more technical ones such as wetting, adhesive or frictional properties. The biomedical field by itself encompasses a very wide potential of applications for such technologies, with stringent technical specifications on mass-produced consumables. Our choice in TopoInjection is to work on injectable drug delivery devices, to focus on a specific industrial application – yet the results should be widely applicable. Such a system must be able to deliver active biological substances with a high precision, must meet strict requirements on tribological properties, watertightness, chemical stability, biocompatibility, and must be compatible with mass production. A preliminary study of the tribological behaviour of the contact between an elastomer (piston) and a rough surface (body) in a syringe suggested which textures should be ideal for polymer surfaces. The next step is now to be able to manufacture surfaces with a reproducible texture throughout the required scale range (100 nm – 100 µm) on polyolefin pieces produced in large series. The aim of the project is to develop a polymer injection moulding process giving the required textures thanks to a combination of four sets of parameters: 1) the mould surface texture, 2) the mould surface chemistry, 3) the physical and chemical properties of the injected polymer, 4) the injection moulding process parameters. To reach this goal, TopoInjection shall focus on the following keypoints: • develop a new mould surface texturation process, using femtosecond Laser beams; • develop experimental and numerical tools to understand the polymer melt flow at the microscale, together with the evolution of the surface upon unmoulding; • disclose the interactions between the mould surface chemistry, modified by PVD hard coatings, the polymer physico- chemistry and the interface behaviour. This deductive approach will probably not yield all the necessary elements for the solution of the problem. It will therefore be completed by a more inductive, empirical approach based on trials on an instrumented injection moulding press. The results from the deductive approach will be integrated continuously to orient real-size tests. This ambitious project gathers three academic laboratories (LTDS, LaHC, CEMEF-ARMINES), an engineering school (ITECH) and two industrial partners (HEF, Becton Dickinson, HEYRMOULES). Most have both internationally recognised expertise in the scientific fields of interest and a long experience of collaborative projects

We propose to develop a contactless printing technology based on the use of Ag:TiO2 nanostructured films that exhibit multicolour photochromism. Such films will be applied on flexible supports like plastic or paper, compatible with most applications in the fields of security and traceability. As these supports do not withstand high temperatures, the elaboration techniques used - sol gel and magnetron sputtering - will be adapted to this constraint. The elaborated films contain Ag nanoparticles (NP) embedded in a nanoporous TiO2 matrix. The permanent or reversible changes of color occurring under illumination by UV/visible lasers rely on the control of the localized surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of Ag nanoparticles. They result from the tuning of the NP size/shape distribution through photo-activated redox reactions occurring specifically with the titania matrix.Various colors can be obtained and are related to the changes observed at the nanoscale (morphology, organization, chemical surrounding of the Ag NPs). Electromagnetic modeling will help us to better understand this relation between the structural properties of the NP assemblies and the resulting reflectance or transmittance spectra. The photo-inscription technique on nanostructured films provides a set of colors on various supports. A color printing system can then be calibrated in order to perform reliable color reproduction and readable data inscription. After the selection of color primaries, we will develop a halftoning method (dot-off-dot halftoning) in order to increase the number of color shades. Finally, a color appearance model will relate the optically measured data of the printed samples and the human perception of their visual attributes.