KU Leuven researchers receive ERC Advanced Grant
The European Research Council (ERC) has again awarded its Advanced Grants for cutting-edge research. This year, two KU Leuven researchers will receive the prestigious grant: chemist Koen Binnemans and physicist Giovanni Lapenta.
ERC Advanced Grants are grants for established researchers who have already earned their spurs. The Advanced Grants are awarded for a period of five years and can amount to up to 2.5 million euros.
All applications are evaluated on the basis of a single criterion: the excellence of both the project and the researcher himself. The applications that meet the quality threshold are ranked based on their score. Only the highest ranked proposals receive funding.
Koen Binnemans: circular hydrometallurgy for energy transition metals (CIRMET)
© Elisabeth Decker
Full professor at the Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry; Member of the KU Leuven Institute for Metals and Minerals (SIM 2 )
Without metals, there is no transition to a green economy. For example, the batteries needed for green mobility and energy storage require significant amounts of high-purity metals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper. To be less dependent on countries such as China and Russia, Europe wants to take control of the production and purification of these metals itself.
The paradox is that the production of the metals, which are necessary for the transition to green energy and mobility, does not itself take place via the most sustainable processes. The solution to this problem is the switch from linear to circular hydrometallurgy, where we can extract metals with as little waste production as possible and with recycling of the reagents.
In CIRMET we will develop circular hydrometallurgical processes through a better understanding at the molecular level of the reactions involved and through smart manipulation of chemical equilibria. Thanks to this project, we aim to make a major leap forward in the greening of the production of crucial energy transition metals. In time, these insights could also be used to make the recycling of used batteries more environmentally friendly.
Giovanni Lapenta: models for the impact of solar storms
Full Professor at the Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics, Plasma Astrophysics Unit; Member of the KU Leuven Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Giovanni Lapenta
Understanding how solar storms affect a planet has both fundamental scientific importance and great social value. It can help protect our infrastructure from the most powerful solar storms.
“Currently, models that calculate the impact fall short due to algorithmic challenges and lack of computational power,” explains Professor Lapenta. “Our goal is to develop a more accurate model of the space around a planet, which will result in a much better understanding of the impact of solar storms.”
What makes this possible is the Energy Conserving semi implicit method (ECsim) that precisely conserves the energy, a crucial element in the research into the energy flow of the solar wind. In addition, conservation of energy leads to improved numerical stability, greatly increasing the ability to simulate very large systems such as planetary atmospheres.
“To this method, extremely important innovations will be added,” says Professor Lapenta. “For example, we will deploy CPU-GPU algorithms, for the new heterogeneous supercomputers being developed by EuroHPC, which will make it possible in the next 3-5 years to model an area as large as space around the Earth by thinking from first principles.”