Specific programme: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

UPV/EHU Partner Status: Beneficiary
UPV/EHU PI: David Mecerreyes Molero

Project start: 01/09/2025 
Project end: 31/01/2028

Brief description:

More than two-thirds of the global population will experience severe water scarcity by 2030. Water harvesting (WH) and managing strategies need to be developed urgently in Europe to face this challenge. Since climate change makes rain and drought unpredictable, water harvesting materials need to collect and release water with deterministic stimuli, as electricity. The applicant (Experienced Researcher, ER), during her PhD and first PostDoc, studied the interaction between water and conducting/semiconducting polymers. She worked on a conducting polymer with glycolated side chains able to undergo volumetric expansion driven by ions and water intake. She believes that such materials are promising for WH, as the collection and release is driven by an electrical stimulus. To increase the water stabilization and retention, she plans to synthetize a new class of polymers based on an electrical-responsive backbone and zwitterionic water-stabilizing side chains. To this end, the ER will be trained on design, synthesis and characterization of polymers at the host institution, the Basque Centre for Macromolecular Design and Engineering (Polymat), by Prof. David Mecerreyes, a leading expert in design and synthesis of innovative polymers. She will then fabricate a prototype that will be tested in a greenhouse on living plants during the secondment at the Linköping University (LiU) with the Electronic Plants group, led by Prof. Eleni Stavrinidou, an emerging expert on interfacing polymers and plants. Finally, the ER will spend a placement at the end of the fellowship at the PolyKey, a startup focused on sustainably scaling up laboratory polymerization processes. Dr. Andere Basterretxea, the CEO of PolyKey, will supervise the ER, training her on scale up procedures. E-Sprinkle will contribute to the scientific and personal growth of the ER, who at the end of this fellowship will be a highly specialized, competitive profile as independent research leader or as manager in industry