Project acronym BICAEHFID
Project Biogeographic and cultural adaptations of early humans during the first intercontinental dispersals
Researcher (PI) Ignacio DE LA TORRE
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary Our understanding of the emergence and dispersal of the earliest tool-making hominins has been revolutionised in the last decade, with sites in eastern Africa and China pushing both events more than half a million years earlier than previously thought. Traditional models linking biological speciation, cultural innovation and migration events with climatic pulses have remained theoretical, and recent discoveries suggest that the picture of the earliest human colonization across the Old World is far more complex, demanding heuristic approaches to understand the biogeography and adaptive behaviours of early humans.
This project will be the first substantive attempt to produce a global synthesis of earliest human occupation dynamics by comparing the world’s longest sequences of early archaeological sites, namely eastern Africa and China. Our objective is to understand the alternative evolutionary trajectories adopted by hominins that shared an overarching biological and cultural background, but who faced different climatic and biogeographic challenges and opportunities.
The ambition of our global-scale objectives is accompanied by the unmatched quality of our datasets and the ground-breaking perspective we will adopt in their study. Fieldwork in the two most renowned sequences in each region alongside a primary study of additional top-quality assemblages in both subcontinents, will be combined with extensive metadata sets to produce comprehensive views of temporal trends and paleoecological patterns. Our state-of-the-art methodological sets (which combine an exceptionally diverse range of disciplines from geochemistry to niche modelling) and ground-breaking analytical perspective (which considers data from micro-stratigraphy to satellite imaging) will enable us to develop new approaches to challenge established paradigms and produce a new picture of the biogeographic adaptations of early stone-tool makers.
Summary
Our understanding of the emergence and dispersal of the earliest tool-making hominins has been revolutionised in the last decade, with sites in eastern Africa and China pushing both events more than half a million years earlier than previously thought. Traditional models linking biological speciation, cultural innovation and migration events with climatic pulses have remained theoretical, and recent discoveries suggest that the picture of the earliest human colonization across the Old World is far more complex, demanding heuristic approaches to understand the biogeography and adaptive behaviours of early humans.
This project will be the first substantive attempt to produce a global synthesis of earliest human occupation dynamics by comparing the world’s longest sequences of early archaeological sites, namely eastern Africa and China. Our objective is to understand the alternative evolutionary trajectories adopted by hominins that shared an overarching biological and cultural background, but who faced different climatic and biogeographic challenges and opportunities.
The ambition of our global-scale objectives is accompanied by the unmatched quality of our datasets and the ground-breaking perspective we will adopt in their study. Fieldwork in the two most renowned sequences in each region alongside a primary study of additional top-quality assemblages in both subcontinents, will be combined with extensive metadata sets to produce comprehensive views of temporal trends and paleoecological patterns. Our state-of-the-art methodological sets (which combine an exceptionally diverse range of disciplines from geochemistry to niche modelling) and ground-breaking analytical perspective (which considers data from micro-stratigraphy to satellite imaging) will enable us to develop new approaches to challenge established paradigms and produce a new picture of the biogeographic adaptations of early stone-tool makers.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 996 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym Foldmetcat
Project Bioinspired Catalytic Metallofoldamers
Researcher (PI) ANTONIO M ECHAVARREN PABLOS
Host Institution (HI) FUNDACIO PRIVADA INSTITUT CATALA D'INVESTIGACIO QUIMICA
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE5, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary Inspired by mimicking the characteristics of terpenoid cyclase enzymes, the goal of this proposal is to design new types of catalysts containing electrophilic transition metal centers that could simultaneously fold and activate polyunsaturated substrates promoting non-inherent cyclization modes. Our goal is unprecedented, although it is rooted on fundamental organometallic chemistry, in particular, on the known activation of polyunsaturated substrates by highly electrophilic transition metals. These unconventional cyclizations cascades challenge the paradigm that the intrinsic reactivity of the substrate is the relevant factor in carbocation-initiated processes and would provide access to large carbocyclic skeletons such as those present in taxol and ophiobolin enantioselectively in a single step under catalytic conditions. Although the initial work will be carried out with gold catalysts, a major goal of this research is to develop other general-purpose efficient chiral electrophilic catalysts based on zinc. To attain our goal, we will study more simple catalysts to delineate the factors that control the folding of polyenynes and polyenes. Thus, we will prepare new series of C2-chiral catalysts in which the stereogenic elements are close to the reaction site. Related C2-chiral systems will be generated by supramolecular hydrogen-bond pairing. A similar chiral arrangement could also be achieved by an intramolecular chiral anion translocation from the metal to a distant hydrogen-bond donor site. In addition, we will explore larger systems based on structurally well-defined metallic clusters to generate highly electrophilic chiral reactive sites. The folding and activation of polyunsaturated substrates will be studied first with a series of catalytic prototypes based on digold or heterobimetallic complexes with N-heterocyclic carbenes, diphosphines, mixed ligands of these types, as well as resorcinarene-phosphonite cavitant ligands.
Summary
Inspired by mimicking the characteristics of terpenoid cyclase enzymes, the goal of this proposal is to design new types of catalysts containing electrophilic transition metal centers that could simultaneously fold and activate polyunsaturated substrates promoting non-inherent cyclization modes. Our goal is unprecedented, although it is rooted on fundamental organometallic chemistry, in particular, on the known activation of polyunsaturated substrates by highly electrophilic transition metals. These unconventional cyclizations cascades challenge the paradigm that the intrinsic reactivity of the substrate is the relevant factor in carbocation-initiated processes and would provide access to large carbocyclic skeletons such as those present in taxol and ophiobolin enantioselectively in a single step under catalytic conditions. Although the initial work will be carried out with gold catalysts, a major goal of this research is to develop other general-purpose efficient chiral electrophilic catalysts based on zinc. To attain our goal, we will study more simple catalysts to delineate the factors that control the folding of polyenynes and polyenes. Thus, we will prepare new series of C2-chiral catalysts in which the stereogenic elements are close to the reaction site. Related C2-chiral systems will be generated by supramolecular hydrogen-bond pairing. A similar chiral arrangement could also be achieved by an intramolecular chiral anion translocation from the metal to a distant hydrogen-bond donor site. In addition, we will explore larger systems based on structurally well-defined metallic clusters to generate highly electrophilic chiral reactive sites. The folding and activation of polyunsaturated substrates will be studied first with a series of catalytic prototypes based on digold or heterobimetallic complexes with N-heterocyclic carbenes, diphosphines, mixed ligands of these types, as well as resorcinarene-phosphonite cavitant ligands.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym HELD
Project Hetero-structures for Efficient Luminescent Devices
Researcher (PI) Hendrik Jan BOLINK
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary We propose to engineer stable-highly luminescent heterostructures based on defect tolerant benign perovskites and their integration into efficient planar/thin film optoelectronic devices. Primary targeted devices are: blue and white planar electroluminescent devices, high efficiency solar cells and electrically pumped lasers.
We will use processing methods that are compatible with large area industrial processes, in particular focusing on vapour deposition using thermal sublimation of the perovskite precursors. The boundaries of this simple, scalable and economic coating method will be determined using an advanced real time in-situ optical monitoring system based on hyperspectral imaging. This tool will unveil the limits and processing conditions for the preparation of uniform and very thin (< 10 nm) crystalline thin-film semiconductors.
We will also attempt to replace the toxic lead in today’s most studied perovskite materials, by less toxic materials such as tin and silver/bismuth mixtures. Here vacuum based processing is beneficial in view of the limited air-stability and solubility of their pre-cursor salts.
Accurate vapour deposition methods will allow the fabrication of perovskites in multiple layered heterostructures (MLH) that passivate the perovskite crystal boundaries. This will increase their thermal and structural stability and above all their photoluminescence efficiency. With the sophisticated processing control, multiple quantum wells (MQWs) will be engineered. MQWs are promising for light-emitting devices, in particular for lasers.
The impact of the project is large on various fields ranging from processes, materials and device engineering, physics, and energy. High efficiency, planar LEDs and solar cells, can shift the energy landscape and strongly help to meet the worlds CO2 reduction targets. The demonstration of electrically pumped lasing in easily processed thin film semiconductors will generate so far un-available fields of science.
Summary
We propose to engineer stable-highly luminescent heterostructures based on defect tolerant benign perovskites and their integration into efficient planar/thin film optoelectronic devices. Primary targeted devices are: blue and white planar electroluminescent devices, high efficiency solar cells and electrically pumped lasers.
We will use processing methods that are compatible with large area industrial processes, in particular focusing on vapour deposition using thermal sublimation of the perovskite precursors. The boundaries of this simple, scalable and economic coating method will be determined using an advanced real time in-situ optical monitoring system based on hyperspectral imaging. This tool will unveil the limits and processing conditions for the preparation of uniform and very thin (< 10 nm) crystalline thin-film semiconductors.
We will also attempt to replace the toxic lead in today’s most studied perovskite materials, by less toxic materials such as tin and silver/bismuth mixtures. Here vacuum based processing is beneficial in view of the limited air-stability and solubility of their pre-cursor salts.
Accurate vapour deposition methods will allow the fabrication of perovskites in multiple layered heterostructures (MLH) that passivate the perovskite crystal boundaries. This will increase their thermal and structural stability and above all their photoluminescence efficiency. With the sophisticated processing control, multiple quantum wells (MQWs) will be engineered. MQWs are promising for light-emitting devices, in particular for lasers.
The impact of the project is large on various fields ranging from processes, materials and device engineering, physics, and energy. High efficiency, planar LEDs and solar cells, can shift the energy landscape and strongly help to meet the worlds CO2 reduction targets. The demonstration of electrically pumped lasing in easily processed thin film semiconductors will generate so far un-available fields of science.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 175 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
