ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

The progress in liquid chromatography (LC), basically following Moore’s law over the last decade, will soon come to a halt. LC is the current state-of-the-art chemical separation method to measure the composition of complex mixtures. Driven by the ever growing complexity of the samples in e.g., environmental and biomedical research, LC is constantly pushed to higher efficiencies. Using highly optimized and monodisperse spherical particles, randomly packed in high pressure columns, the progress in LC has up till now been realized by reducing the particle size and concomitantly increasing the pressure. With pressure already up at 1500 bar, groundbreaking progress is still badly needed, e.g., to fully unravel the complex reaction networks in human cells. For this purpose, it is proposed to leave the randomly packed bed paradigm and move to structures wherein the 1 to 5 micrometer particles currently used in LC are arranged in perfectly ordered and open-structured geometries. This is now possible, as the latest advances in nano-manufacturing and positioning allow proposing and developing an inventive high-throughput particle assembly and deposition strategy. The PI's ability to develop new parts of chromatography will be used to rationally optimize the many possible geometries accessible through this disruptive new technology, and identify those structures coping best with any remaining degree of disorder. Using the PI's experimental know-how on microfluidic chromatography systems, these structures will be used to pursue the disruptive gain margin (order of factor 100 in separation speed) that is expected based on general chromatography theory. Testing this groundbreaking new generation of LC columns together with world-leading bio-analytical scientists will illustrate their potential in making new discoveries in biology and life sciences. The new nano-assembly strategies might also be pushed to other applications, such as photonic crystals.

2 488 813 €

Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30

"PROSPER is a multidisciplinary project covering the emerging fields of photonics, bio-chemistry and endoscopy, targeting to contribute to the development of a new class of biochemical optical sensors that would significantly improve the healthcare of the future. PROSPER will address this objective through the demonstration of biosensors based on a functionalized polymer optical fibre (POF) in which specially-designed refractive-index gratings have been written. Immobilised biomolecular receptors on the grafted fibre surface will allow label-free recognition through the monitoring of wavelength shifts in the grating spectral response. Such biosensors are predicted to exhibit a surrounding refractive index detection limit of 10-6 in real time, which is classical for biodetection. Although generic and able to work in various areas such as environmental monitoring, food analysis, agriculture or security, the proposed biosensors will be targeted for medical diagnostics where they present the most ground-breaking nature. Indeed, unlike bulk structures, they require reduced reaction volumes for ex-vivo measurements and present the advantageous possibility of assaying several parameters simultaneously (e.g. several cancer-associated antigens in one sample). As a result, statistical analysis of these parameters can potentially increase the reliability and reduce the measurement uncertainty of a diagnostic over single-parameter assays. More importantly, the proposed biosensors have the unique potential to be used in-vivo in an endoscope (for this reason POFs are privileged over silica), which would considerably improve the diagnostic. The ultimate target of PROSPER is thus to demonstrate the feasibility of diagnostics outside of laboratory settings. A final prototype consisting of a packaged polymer biosensor will be validated."

1 438 368 €

Start date: 2011-12-01, End date: 2016-11-30

One of the major challenges in theoretical physics is the development of systematic methods for describing and simulating quantum many body systems with strong interactions. Given the huge experimental progress and technological potential in manipulating strongly correlated atoms and electrons, there is a pressing need for such a better theory. The study of quantum entanglement holds the promise of being a game changer for this question. By mapping out the entanglement structure of the low-energy wavefunctions of quantum spin systems on the lattice, the prototypical example of strongly correlated systems, we have found that the associated wavefunctions can be very well modeled by a novel class of variational wavefunctions, called tensor network states. Tensor networks are changing the ways in which strongly correlated systems can be simulated, classified and understood: as opposed to the usual many body methods, these tensor networks are generic and describe non-perturbative effects in a very natural way. The goal of this proposal is to advance the scope and use of tensor networks in several directions, both from the numerical and theoretical point of view. We plan to study the differential geometric character of the manifold of tensor network states and the associated nonlinear differential equations of motion on it, develop post tensor network methods in the form of effective theories on top of the tensor network vacuum, study tensor networks in the context of lattice gauge theories and topologically ordered systems, and investigate the novel insights that tensor networks are providing to the renormalization group and the holographic principle. Colloquially, we believe that tensor networks and the theory of entanglement provide a basic new vocabulary for describing strongly correlated quantum systems, and the main goal of this proposal is to develop the syntax and semantics of that new language.

1 927 500 €

Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31

Concrete production processes do not take full advantage of the rheological potential of fresh cementitious materials, and are still largely labour-driven and sensitive to the human factor. SmartCast proposes a new concrete casting concept to transform the concrete industry into a highly automated technological industry. Currently, the rheological properties of the concrete are defined by mix design and mixing procedure without any further active adjustment during casting. The goal of this proposal is the active control of concrete rheology during casting, and the active triggering of early stiffening of the concrete as soon as it is put in place. The ground-breaking idea to achieve this goal, is to develop concrete with actively controllable rheology by adding admixtures responsive to externally activated electromagnetic frequencies. Inter-disciplinary insights are important to achieve these goals, including inputs from concrete technology, polymer science, electrochemistry, rheology and computational fluid dynamics. We will develop 4 new experimental test set-ups allowing to study active rheology control during different phases of the casting process: 1)concrete pumping (control of slip layer), 2)while flowing in the formwork (bulk control of rheology), 3)while flowing through formwork joints (control of formwork tightness), and 4)once the concrete is in its final position (trigger stiffening). Well-designed polymers with the desired response to the applied activation will be added to the concrete during mixing. The experiments will be analysed by advanced computational flow modelling based on fundamental rheological laws. Special attention will be paid to the compatibility of all responsive polymers selected for the different control phases. SmartCast will mean a paradigm shift for formwork-based concrete casting. The developed active rheology control will provide a fundamental basis for the development of future-proof 3D printing techniques in concrete industry

2 498 750 €

Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30