CoCoGel: Controlling Colloidal Gels for Novel Sustainable Materials

需要在产品配方方面取得变革性进展，以满足广泛的欧盟优先工业领域对可持续性的需求。胶体凝胶-复杂的、不平衡的软物质系统-是其中遇到的许多制剂中的核心组分，包括建筑材料（例如，水泥），能量材料（例如，电池和燃料电池）、消费者护理和食品以及药品。目前的工业实践需要在热力学参数（组成和相互作用）、淬灭动力学和加工条件之间进行微妙的平衡，以获得具有所需材料性能（例如，机械、热或电性能）。如果没有对如何控制微观结构以及微观结构如何与材料性能联系的强大物理理解，这种平衡仍然局限于试错。胶体-凝胶物理学的最新进展有力地表明，胶体凝胶性质的合理设计是触手可及的。这种设计是基于通过外部刺激，如剪切，超声波，和（磁/电）场，并添加非布朗夹杂物的调整凝胶微观结构。CoCoGel博士网络将使当前的学术状态转化为工业实践，专注于控制微观结构的这些途径。我们将汇集6个学术和6个工业合作伙伴-一系列实验，计算和理论技术的专家-他们可以通过这些途径实现新的可持续材料和生产工艺的创造。我们工业博士培训网络成功的关键是深化和扩大现有的合作，以及培养新一代具有软材料多学科专业知识和行业实践经验的研究人员。这将进一步推动欧洲各行各业的可持续发展。

Transformative advances in product formulation are required to meet the demand for sustainability across a wide range of EU-priority industrial areas. Colloidal gels - complex, out-of-equilibrium soft matter systems - are core components in many of the formulations encountered therein, including building materials (e.g., cement), energy materials (e.g., batteries and fuel cells), consumer care and food products, and medicine. Current industrial practice requires delicate balancing between thermodynamic parameters (composition and interactions), quenching kinetics, and processing conditions to achieve gel structures with the desired material performance (e.g., mechanical, thermal, or electrical properties). Without a robust physical understanding of how the microstructure can be controlled and how this links to material properties, this balancing remains limited to trial and error. Recent advances in colloidal-gel physics strongly imply that the rational design of colloidal gel properties is within reach. This design is based on tuning gel microstructure via external stimuli, such as shear, ultrasound, and (magnetic/electric) fields, and the addition of non-Brownian inclusions. The CoCoGel doctoral network will enable the translation from the current academic state of the art to industrial practice, focusing on these routes to controlling microstructure. We will bring together 6 academic and 6 industrial partners - experts in a range of experimental, computational, and theoretical techniques - who can realize the creation of new sustainable materials and production processes via these routes. Key to the success of our industrial doctoral training network is a deepening and extending of existing collaborations, as well as the training of a new generation of researchers with both multi-disciplinary expertise in soft materials and practical experience engaging with industry. These will drive further sustainable development over a wide range of European industries.