Financing IOF program

With IOF funding we will make SURF into an internationally renowned research centre with industrial valorisation as one of the key priorities. SURF has the potential, both in experience and reputation, to develop and grow stronger in the new research disciplines of state-of-the-art electrochemistry and (nano)surfaces and to become a prominent player in the EU research field.

The main goals of this project are: (1) increasing our activities, including new research orientations and playing a proactive role in their evolution by initiating and participating in dedicated research projects with industry and EU and (2) valorisation through patents and spin-off activities.

These new research orientations can be summarized as follows:

- DIMENSION 'DOWNSCALING' TO NANOMETER RESOLUTION: this means analyzing and manipulating the material surface on the very localised, nano-technological scale.

- MULTIFUNCTIONAL METALS: this means the creation and analysis of metal surfaces with a unique combination of functional properties on a very small dimension.

- PROCESS MODELLING: process modelling means quantitative modelling of electrochemical processes to get a better and quantified understanding of the physics (transport), chemistry (reactions) and electrode processes.

- FUNCTIONAL MODELLING: functional modelling means for example interpretation of experimental data by modelling the transfer function between the input and the output signal. Another example is optical modelling expertise, allowing us to predict the appearance of modified surfaces.