IPS

High-entropy oxides (HEOs) are a new category of materials constituted of five or more elements that are randomly distributed in a single phase. Such materials can have better properties than conventional oxides, related to the lattice distortion and synergistic effects of the component. Due to this lattice distortion and the uneven electron-cloud distribution between the metals and the oxygen, HEOs can impact on different catalytic reactions, such as CO2 reduction, H2S removal and the degradation of pollutants. However, HEO testing and application in catalysis is an undeveloped field. The conventional photocatalysts, such as TiO2, are mainly used in slurry conditions (demanding a post-filtration step) and present a low quantum efficiency and low activity under visible light. Doping or co-doping of conventional catalysts can promote changes in the crystalline structure and improve the photocatalytic activity. Thus, the use of new, multi-element materials such as HEOs appears to be an excellent, innovative alternative to overcome these drawbacks. HEOs can be synthesised by the anodic oxidation of high-entropy alloys (HEAs), creating strongly attached nanostructures that do not need a filtration step, and with enhanced photocatalysts properties. Using this strategy, our ambition is to develop a new and highly efficient photocatalyst, which will contribute to a major step forward in catalysis. The produced materials will be fully characterised and the photocatalytic efficiency will be evaluated over the degradation of new pollutants present in water such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, hormones, microplastics, etc. and compared with conventional/commercial photocatalysts.

Permanent magnets (PM) have a wide range of applications and play an important role in the realization of a sustainable future. With the increasing demand for green and renewable energy production and sustainability, comes a rise in popularity and demand for electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) which use permanent magnet-driven electric motors. However; the development of technology and shrinking dimensions of parts used for such technologies has made post-processing and machining of the bulk PMs inevitable. This, in turn, leads to a 30% waste of the magnetic material as swarf/rejects. PMs are made of a combination of Rare Earth Elements (REE), transition metals (TM) and, some other elements. The scarcity of the REEs and volatile and unstable price of the TM market (especially Cobalt) has pushed the EU to encourage scientists to come up with feasible methods to revive the mentioned waste and thus achieve a circular economy and guarantee sustainable energy production and by doing that help the EU to achieve it's Green Deal Initiative goal set for 2050. The recycling of Samarium-Cobalt (Sm-Co) permanent magnets has been the target of a number of scientific studies, however; the proposed methods are all very energy-intensive and require a lot of mineral acids, and generate a huge amount of wastewater during the process. In this proposal, we suggest a green and facile method based on electro-deoxidation of the oxidized magnet swarf which will require much less energy consumption and will require a negligible amount of acids and chemicals compared to the conventional methods.

The HiPeR-F project aims to establish a new frontier research direction – high-pressure fluorine chemistry, by method development and a merger of two highly specialised and experimentally demanding fields, namely high-pressure experiments in diamond anvil cell and inorganic fluorine chemistry. Fluorine under high pressure represents a breakthrough testing environment for challenging the oxidation-state limitations of the elements in the periodic table. Tantalizing theoretical indications have been provided recently for the existence of compounds with elements displaying unusual and exotic formal oxidation states, and even the possibility of the inner electronic shell involvement in chemical bonding. However, extreme conditions of very high pressure (in GPa range) and extreme chemical reactivity (fluorine) are required and this is currently limited to in silico investigations. Experiment lags substantially behind the theory. The experimental verification of exciting computational predictions is of paramount importance and will be pursued in HiPeR-F. Targeted compounds with elements in exotic oxidation states are at the edge of existence and are eminently difficult to synthesise, but are also of significant interest to the scientific community at large. Novel compounds obtained in high-pressure experiments could exhibit unusual electronic structures and thus exotic physical properties. High-pressure fluorochemistry thus represents a genuine new direction in modern chemistry with exciting possibilities and would enable a frontier research that would significantly advance our understanding of many facets of chemistry.