The interaction between metals and microscopic plant-like organisms called phytoplankton is a key link to global carbon balance. More than a half of atmospheric CO2 on earth is taken up by phytoplankton, but iron (Fe) limits their growth in large regions of the oceans. Ongoing ocean acidification and global warming will influence Fe-stress in marine phytoplankton and hence the biological carbon fixation. Key existing knowledge gaps are the pathways by which phytoplankton take up Fe, and influences of chemical conditions in the microenvironment surrounding algal cells (i.e., phycosphere) on Fe speciation and bioavailability. This knowledge represents an impediment to understanding the complex effects of climate change on Fe uptake and oceanic carbon fixation. The project ‘Phycosphere Fe’ will determine chemical conditions and Fe speciation in the phycosphere of model phytoplankton species, quantify the role of phycosphere Fe speciation in Fe bioavailability, and investigate influences of climate change (i.e., warming and increased CO2) on Fe-algae interfacial processes. The project is key to the assessment of Fe bioavailability, growth and CO2 fixation of phytoplankton in current and future oceans, which make key contributions to global carbon sequestration. The project will improve our ability to model phytoplankton dynamics and predict biological carbon fixation in a changing ocean.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) play an important role in our daily life with a variety of applicants. To this day, significant resources have been dedicated to the development of high-performance LIBs, particularly the research necessary to identify the optimum electrolyte materials to solve the safety issue. Up to this point polymer electrolytes are widely investigated for their potential to improve batteries’ safety. Given the relative high ionic conductivity, λ, around 10-3 S/cm, poly-ethylene oxide (PEO) is frequently utilized as the polymer matrix in this scenario. But compared to the commercial liquid electrolyte, the ionic conductivity of polymer electrolyte needs to be improved for at least ten times. It is widely acknowledged that the transportation of Li+ is directly related to the segmental and backbone motions of the polymer indicating to improve the ionic conductivity by structure optimization of polymer. Instead of using the traditional trial and error method, modern innovative studies intend to develop a microscopic picture of the Li–ion transportation process to instruct the polymer optimization but it is difficult with in-house laboratory methods. This project aims at designing a polymer with high ionic conductivity. To achieve this goal, the microscopic view of Li+ transportation in polymer will be elucidated through molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and the polymer dynamics will be clarified with MD simulation and Quasi-elastic Neutron Scattering (QENS).

This project NeuTrAE is aimed to advance our understanding on lingering puzzles on the flavor evolution of neutrinos and their implication in particle and nuclear astrophysics. Neutrinos are characterized by their flavors that can change as they propagate in a phenomenon known as neutrino flavor oscillations. The oscillations in vacuum and ordinary matter are well understood and confirmed by several experiments. Astrophysical compact objects, such as core-collapse supernovae and the violent merger event of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole, are profuse sources of neutrinos. In those astrophysical environments the neutrino flux becomes so intense that the flavor interference of neutrinos with each other has to be taken into account. This non-linear effect coupling neutrinos propagating in different directions and with different energies is known as collective neutrino oscillations. Accounting for the collective neutrino oscillations in simulations of astrophysical environments requires a quantum kinetic transport. It remains a tremendous challenge due to the high-dimensionality of the problem and the vastly different scales for flavor and hydrodynamical evolution. The impact of neutrino flavor transitions on those compact objects remains elusive without efficient and sophisticated treatments. I propose the project NeuTrAE providing a pipeline to study the impact of collective neutrino oscillations in astrophysical environments. It consists of three steps: performing neutrino quantum kinetic simulations, developing numerically effective schemes that can be incorporated in state-of-the art hydrodynamical simulations, and assessing the impact of neutrino flavor transformations on heavy element nucleosynthesis and its electromagnetic signatures. NeuTrAE will also commit to significant advance on dynamical evolution of astrophysical compact objects.

Microbes in soil drive ecosystem services defining life on the Earth. Translocation of these microbes is key features in the spatial exploration of soil. This directly impacts major ecological processes such as niche colonization and the development of soil structure, but knowledge of how microbes migrate in soil is scarce. A potential universal mechanism is fungal hyphae mediated transport (FHMT) where bacteria use hyphae of fungi as a route to translocate in a directed manner. However, this has been solely observed in the laboratory, but not in soil where single-cell level studies are restricted by technical limits. MICOL-FUNTRANS overcomes these limitations by developing and exploiting a novel system combining microfluidics, microbiological and microscopical methods to i) observe microbial movement in soil-like systems and ii) identify single involved organisms. Micro-channels will provide treatments to compare soil colonization and structure formation with and without FHMT. Ultimately, findings will be upscaled to an ecological level in a dedicated field study using a glacier forefield in the Arctic, which constitutes a unique natural laboratory to study initial soil development as ongoing climate change melts glaciers and frees vast areas of barren soil at present. The results of this project will foster an integrated view on the soil biome and push research on bacterial-fungal interactions to the centre of attention in soil microbiology and related industries. Specifically, knowledge of migration rates of microbes in soil will impact models on nutrient distribution and efforts in bioremediation of contaminated soil. A better understanding of the initial stages of soil structure formation at the micro-scale will impact efforts in soil quality and health preservation related actions, a topic of highest societal and economic interest as the degradation of soil is one of the most pressing environmental threads we are currently facing.