Technologies

WembraneX is an Italian start-up born with the ambition to make a significant contribution to UN Sustainable Goal 6 - Ensure Access to Clean Water and Sanitation for all by 2030.

This invention comprises an interrogation and readout differential method for chemical sensors based on Surface Plasmon Resonances (SPR). The integration of the SPR sensing unit (chip or other), as intermediate reflecting element of a Fabry-Perot (FP) optical resonator, is the starting point for the application of this method.

It enables a systemic and evolutionary development of people, organisations and territories by overcoming the criticality of traditional approaches, which get stuck because of rationalistic reductions in complexity, as well as lack of motivation. This responds to the social sustainability needs highlighted by the UN 2030 agenda. The methodology is based on 3 pillars:

Flow technologies for the synthesis of chemical intermediates have great potential at the industrial level and the synthesis of nanoparticles (NPs) can speed up the development of new products. In this context, we could find the technology for the synthesis of NPs. The NPs (Au, Ag, or Pt) are synthesized in a single step and are functionalized with polymeric stabilizers (such as PVP, PVA, PEG, or others) or with thio-glycosidic fragments.

Chemical solution deposition of metal-organic precursors have favoured the research and development of thin films of simple and complex oxides such as Pb(Zr,Ti)O3, and Al2O3, up to their industrial application in pyroelectric and capacitor devices. Deposition methods used are spin-on and dip-coating. The advantages of the techniques are:

(i) low cost of equipment and chemicals

(ii) large area deposition

(iii) low crystallisation temperatures

The object of the technology is the development of a transferable methodology from the laboratory scale to the pilot scale to be validated in the industrial setting for the treatment of basic waste of natural polymers of agro-food or manufacturing industry.

The instrumentation is based on the electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) which is a non-invasive geophysical technology used to obtain information on anomalous bodies possibly present in the subsoil. The theoretical basis lies in the different electrical properties of the lithotypes present in the subsoil.

The NanoMicroFab infrastructure, support companies operating in the field of micro and nanoelectronics through the supply of materials, development of processes, design, fabrication and characterization of materials and devices. NanoMicroFab makes use of existing CNR facilities of the Institute of Microelectronics and Microsystems, the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies and the Institute for the Structure of Matter and provides: • a complete line of development of devices based on wide band gap semiconductors.

NANOINCICLO is a technology based on the use of nanostructured cyclodextrins (CDs) for the targeted delivery of drugs such as anticancer drugs, photodynamic drugs, anti-inflammatories, antivirals, antibacterials, nutraceuticals and metals with therapeutic and diagnostic properties. Successful CDs for the proposed technology are FDA-approved or in advanced pre-clinical investigational stage and include natural and functionalized, polymeric, and amphiphilic monomeric CDs.

The development of new materials with near-infrared emission (NIR, 700 – 1000 nm) represent an important target in the technological progress of innovative active components for OLED devices (including flexible ones), surveillance systems, autonomous driving, night vision sensors, fiber optic telecommunications and medical systems. In all these fields it still lacks a commercial NIR-OLED technology.

Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (SSNMR) is today one of the most powerful techniques for characterizing solid and soft materials and systems. This spectroscopy allows the detailed characterization of structural and dynamic properties over large spatial (0.1-100 nm) and time (10²-10^-11 s) scales. Accessing these properties allows a deep knowledge of a material to be obtained and  its design and optimization to be oriented.

The Open Chemistry Database, OChemDb, is a web portal for the research and analysis of crystallochemical information relating to organic, inorganic, metallorganic compounds, and provides statistical information on bond distances, bond angles, torsion angles, types of atoms and space groups. To obtain the above information, OChemDb queries a database, appropriately designed, that contains crystalline structures already resolved.

Combinations of several enzymes in a production chain are preferred to “first generation” enzymatic processes (where the "single reaction - single enzyme" principle was followed), for the synthesis of compounds with high added value starting from simple and cheap substrates. An important requirement for obtaining control in "cascade enzymatic reactions" is the ability to deliver from one biocatalyst to the next one the various intermediates, limiting as much as possible the diffusion of the latter in the solvent.

The metasurface optomechanical modulator is a device designed to modulate the amplitude, phase and polarization of a beam of electromagnetic radiation, independently, or simultaneously, according to prescribed paths in the parameter space (for example, as regards polarization, paths on the Poincaré sphere). The concept of our device can be applied to the entire spectrum of electromagnetic waves: from radio frequency, to microwaves (GHz), to millimeter waves (THz), to far and near infrared radiation, and to visible light.

Quartz tuning forks are employed in scanning atomic force microscopy (AFM), as well as in some derived techniques, as high sensitivity detectors of interactions, of both conservative and dissipative kind, between the AFM nanometric probe and the investigated surface. However, the contributions of the two kinds of interaction result as convoluted in the sensor response, preventing fully quantitative measurements of the quantities of interest.