2.8M granted by the European Research Council to researcher of the University of Coimbra
Liquid3D was launched in January this year, and this funding will help set up three new laboratories at the FCTUC.
Abridged version in English by Diana Taborda
Mahmoud Tavakoli, director of the "Soft and Printed Microelectronics" Laboratory of the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR) of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC), has just been awarded a five-year grant of 2.8 million Euros by the European Research Council (ERC).
The ERC Consolidator grant will be applied to the project "Liquid3D - Bio-inspired bio-inspired soft-matter 3D printed electronics based on liquid metal compounds: environmentally friendly, resilient, recyclable and repairable", which is already in progress, and which aims to provide design freedom to scientists, allowing them to print futuristic electronic circuits.
"The idea is to make a transition from rigid, brittle, polluting and battery-dependent electronics to soft, resilient, recyclable and self-powered electronics. In this context, the Liquid3D project will develop a series of innovative sinterless printable composites based on liquid metals, in order to print functional 3D cells for detection, actuation, processing and energy storage that are entangled in a distributed system in a three-dimensional way," explains the FCTUC researcher.
According to Mahmoud Tavakoli, "the most impressive thing about these systems is that they will enable a new level of bioinspiration in human-produced devices, which is not yet possible." This project also aims to develop fundamental understanding and light robotics of liquid metal-based two-phase composites and methods to recycle the developed composites.
Mahmoud Tavakoli's research has been developed with the support of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program (CMU Portugal), where he is involved in several research projects in the areas of wearable electronics, flexible electronic devices, production of elastic circuits and electronic textiles for health monitoring and digital biomarkers, among others. His involvement with CMU has allowed the contribution to his research of teams from the "Soft Machines Lab", a Carnegie Mellon University Laboratory specialised in this field.
