Dear all,
War in Ukraine has drawn further attention on the impacts of geopolitical decisions regarding critical materials, as shown by a paper concerning fossil fuels and renewables (Nature), a column on Russian threat on EU raw materials supply chain (Egmont Institute), an article on the threat on renewable transition because of the war (TechXxplore) and an article predicting a huge rise of critical materials needs for Li-ion batteries (Mining.com). As a response, several projects are emerging in Europe and in the US, with a rare earth separation plant in Poland (European Raw Materials Alliance), a Vanadium processing facility in Finland (EIT Raw Materials) and also a rare-earth recycling in Iowa (Ames Laboratory). Finally substitution battery materials are also emerging - see enclosed review of existing and future battery materials (CIC Energigune).
Further on the scientific front with a collection of international research on nano cellulose for advanced applications seen on Journal of Materials Science, porosity used to develop metal-free catalysts at UC Madrid, a review of innovative ways to use graphene for better performing Li-ion batteries in Electrochem, optimized materials for fusion reactors at Tokyo Institute of Technology, transistor gates only one atom thick at Tsinghua University, new layered material for future electronics at RMIT in Melbourne, corrosion-free copper thin films at Pusan University, and finally plastic waste conversion for CO2 capture at Korea University and City University of Hong Kong.
In the field of sustainability, we have chosen to highlight: the Australian billionaire who tries to buy coal power plants to close them down, the RePowerEU plan to reduce Europe's dependency on Russian gas imports, Heliogen to go industrial in California with an AI enabled concentrated solar technology and progress on the European project ALG-AD to convert nitrogen in micro algae that can be used in sustainable animal feed.
Finally 16 of our WMF Start Up Alumni were in the news this month. A combination of scale-up & development announcements (Carbios - France, Citrine Informatics - USA, Demeta - France, FredSense - Canada), some exciting partnerships (C12 with French CEA, GrapheneMG with Wood, Twelve with LanzaTech, UbiQD with Canadian Heliene, UBQ Materials with Ambev), a few founders interviewed (Brimstone Energy - USA, Fluence Analytics - USA), as well as interesting press coverage (Blackleaf - France, CompPair - Switzerland, Cuberg - USA, Safi Organics - Kenya, Woodoo - France).
