CARAT- Carbon allotropes with rationalized nanointerfaces and nanolinks for environmental and biomedical applications

Project co-investigator: Antonín Fejfar
Beneficiary name: J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry of the CAS
Project partner: Institute of Physics of the CAS
Project title: Carbon allotropes with rationalized nanointerfaces and nanolinks for environmental and biomedical applications
Acronym: CARAT
Operational programme: Research, Development and Education
Provider: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
Project number: CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_026/0008382
Time period: 1/10/2018 - 31/12/2022
Total costs of the partner part of the project: 9,839,144.00 CZK
EU co-financing rate: 75.9%

Annotation

Implementation of materials with required parameters into functional structures while maintaining their maximum utility value is the common denominator of modern materials science, which is inherently of interdisciplinary nature. A major barrier of the excellent interdisciplinary research that targets the significant and globally recognized progress in the sector is the communication at several levels. In terms of synergistic cooperation it is necessary, but often almost impossible to achieve a complete understanding the scientific or technological problems. The most common reason for the overall failure is the limited possibility of sharing the knowledge between partners with expertise in very different areas because, figuratively speaking, they communicate in their own language. At the level of implementing the material into the functional structure, it is then essential to ensure mutually permeable communication with the environment and with other key components in the system. Although generally enormous effort is devoted to tuning the parameters of individual materials, treatment of the communication channels is rather considered as marginal matter. The main motivation for the proposed project CARAT is a radical change in the modus operandi of interdisciplinary research in highly actual research area focused on carbon nanomaterials. The project formulates completely new strategy of the material design, with the ultimate aim of rationalizing communication channels (interfaces and nanolinks) to the environment in accordance with the nature of the chemical bond of the respective carbon allotrope. At the same time the project targets the establishment of an expert team with a deep engagement in all relevant sectors of the academic and application interest. Based on previous successful cooperation at national and international level, the team members are able to speak the same language, so maximize the profit from the shared expertise and know-how. Internationally, an important outcome of the project is the establishment of the Joint Laboratory of Detonation Synthesis, where groundbreaking experiments will be conducted in the worldwide unique facility by team of experts in all fields linked. In this context, it is expected that the Czech Republic will establish itself as a world-power in the preparation of detonation nanodiamond with precisely defined parameters and hybrid materials based on graphenoids and/or nanodiamond for biomedicine, energy storage and environmental applications.

This project is co-financed by EU.