Advancing sustainable, secure and affordable energy-storage technologies is a key priority for Europe’s for the clean energy transition, climate mitigation and technological sovereignty.
Due to their high energy density, Li-based batteries currently control the industry, but there are still serious issues with resource criticality, safety, recyclability, and total lifespan consequences.
Switching to energy-storage systems based on earth-abundant, multivalent metals, like zinc, and bio-derived supercapacitors promises to reduce dependency on critical raw materials and to deliver devices with competitive volumetric capacity and safer operation.
Current research and innovation approaches often treat materials discovery, device engineering, manufacturing and recycling as separate challenges. This siloed practice slows industrial uptake and risks producing solutions that are technically promising but impractical, unprofitable or environmentally unsound at scale.
To address this gap, INCEPTION combines cutting-edge research on Rechargeable Zinc-Air Batteries (RZAB) and bio-waste-derived supercapacitors with early integration of Industry 4.0 manufacturing strategies and Safe Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) recycling workflows.
To deliver this integrated vision, a novel type of researcher is needed:
The zinc-energy scientist with the skills and expertise to advance ultra-high-performance, safe, affordable, and sustainable Rechargeable Zinc-Air Batteries (RZAB) and Supercapacitors with extended lifetimes.
Through an interdisciplinary, intersectoral, and international program covering electrochemistry, materials science, physics, engineering, electronics, computational modeling, and economics, the INCEPTION Doctoral Network will train doctoral candidates (DC).
They will gain experience through a combination of laboratory research, industrial placements, lifecycle and techno-economic analyses, and hands-on training in advanced manufacturing and recycling techniques.