Natural and engineering sciences

Road traffic is one of the greatest sources of both particulate and gaseous air pollution in towns and cities. New laws and rules have led to exhaust fumes falling significantly in recent years. On the other hand, particulates from wear have increased. Wear of brakes, roads, and tyres nowadays cause such high concentrations of particles in the air that it exceeds the rates from exhaust fume emissions.

It has long been known that different organic compounds and small particles can end up at the bottom of the lungs when we breathe in, and give rise to negative health effects. But what effects the volatile organic compounds and particles formed from brake wear have on the surrounding air and on human health nobody knows at present.

The aim of our study is to find out what and how much volatile organic compounds are formed from brake wear. We will also be studying the particles formed as a result of these emissions in a reactor that can simulate the chemistry of the atmosphere. Furthermore, we will be using a model of a human lung to investigate how poisonous the emissions are.

Project name: Brake wear emissions - a hidden source of volatile organic compounds and secondary particles

Project leader: Sarah Steimer, Associate Senior Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Science, Stockholm University

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.

Graphene is a two-dimensional material consisting of carbon atoms in a six-sided pattern. When two layers of graphene are stacked on top of each other, with one layer rotated in relation to the other, a material known as ‘moiré’ is created.

This has unique properties that depend on what the angle of rotation is. At a certain ‘magic angle’, moiré material develops unusual electronic characteristics. Superconductivity is one of these.

A superconductor can lead electricity without loss of energy – in normal circumstances, some energy is otherwise lost when electricity streams through a material. Therefore, superconductors open the door to new ways of developing more effective electronic components, and also new types of computers.

Understanding the mechanism that turns rotated layers of graphene into superconductors at a magic angle requires much deeper mathematical understanding of this phenomenon than exists today. In this project, we will be investigating the mechanisms using new mathematical tools and models of moiré material. Thereafter, we can build advanced simulations to investigate phenomena such as superconductivity. We will also investigate a type of magnet-like ability to conduct that is created when you stretch moiré material.

Knowledge of how graphene forms superconductors can make new materials with surprising characteristics possible. This can be of great importance for electronics, engineering sciences, and materials science.

Project name: Mathematical methods in magic moiré materials

Project leader: Jens Wittsten, Professor at the Academy of Textiles, Engineering, and Economics, University of Borås

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.

The ‘travelling salesman problem’ is a well-known optimisation problem that is about finding the shortest distance for a traveller between a number of different towns. This problem arises in everyday life when we plan how to get home from work the quickest, or how we buy food in a supermarket.

In society as a whole, we find a myriad of more complex problems. They can relate to training artificial intelligence, enabling high-speed data encryption, or scheduling public transport, airlines, and personnel. In these cases, the optimisation problem becomes extremely difficult, or even impossible to solve using conventional computer systems, as the number of parts to be optimised grows exponentially. Therefore, researchers try to find new ways of making calculations using physical systems inspired by nature. One such computer system, known as the ‘Ising Machine’, can solve a large number of very complex combinatorial optimisation problems.

In our project, we will be investigating the option of implementing analogue CMOS Ising Machine architectures that can solve complex combinatorial problems. In comparison with conventional computers and other Ising Machine architectures, they require little energy, carbon footprint, and costs. They can be much faster, and work in room temperature.

We want to show how analogue CMOS Ising Machines can be made much more powerful, compact, and generally useable to solve combinatorial optimisation problems without any of the limitations that conventional computers and other Ising Machine architecture suffer from.

We will form the foundation for a new research field for development of analogue CMOS Ising Machines and hope to give Sweden a leading position for developing such technology.

Project leader: Ana Rusu, Professor in Integrated Circuits and Systems, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Project name: AIsing: Analog CMOS Ising Machines for Natural Computing

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.

Just like humans, inland water needs to breathe to be healthy. Oxygen needs to find its way in for fish and other organisms to thrive. At the same time, many inland waters emit greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, which affect the Earth’s climate. To assess the ecological state of inland waters and their climate effect, it is important to know how fast the ‘breaths’ are, and how great the exchange of gases.

Something that has long puzzled researchers is that some gases are exchanged faster than others, even if you take into account their specific physical characteristics. According to a much-debated hypothesis, this is due to microscopically small bubbles (microbubbles) that capture certain gases under water and release them when they reach the surface. The hypothesis has never been tested, however, so it is unclear whether microbubbles even exist in lakes and watercourses, how they are created, and whether they actually contribute significantly to gas exchange.

In this project, I will conduct a laboratory and field experiment to find this out. I will be tracing microbubbles with the help of acoustic measuring systems and developing models that describe the role of the microbubbles in the gas exchange.

The results can be of great importance for calculating the oxygen cycle, emissions of greenhouse gases, and other important ecological and biogeochemical processes in inland waters where gases are included. In this way, the results can contribute to sustainable development with living lakes and watercourses.

Project leader: Marcus Klaus, Researcher at the Department of Forest Ecology and Care, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SLU

Project name: Microbubbles – hidden doors for greenhouse gas emissions from lakes and watercourses? (Starting grant)

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.

The fact that there is a deep biosphere that stretches for several kilometres down under our feet was only discovered a few decades ago. Research done in the last few years reveals that the hard-to-reach environment on sea floors, sediments, and the bedrock form the Earth’s most comprehensive microbial living environment. Our research team has recently shown that complex life in the form of fungi, for example, can live far down in the Earth’s crust, in an oxygen-free, dark, and energy-poor environment that was previously thought only single-cell organisms could cope with.

Research also indicates that there was life down there long before land plants established themselves on the continents. But despite the clear importance that the deep biosphere may have had from an evolutionary perspective, this knowledge is surprisingly overlooked.

We have developed a multi-disciplinary method for discovering and dating ancient microbial activity in the deep biosphere. With the help of the method, we have been able to show that there are fossil traces of a deep biosphere in the bedrock of north-western Europe, the ‘Fenno-Scandic Shield’. These traces of life are more than 410 million years old, but by that time plants had already established themselves on land.

Our next step is to look in the very oldest types of rock. There, the oldest traces of underground life may be preserved in cracks and holes. We have access to a unique material of deep bore cores – round rods drilled out of the bedrock – from rocks that are more than 3 billion years old, from places such as South Africa, Australia, Greenland, and the Canadian Shield.

The results of this project will provide new knowledge towards one of humanity’s great questions – how life emerged and developed on Earth.

Project leader: Henrik Drake, Associate Professor at the Department of Biology and the Environment, Linnaeus University

Project name: Deep Life in Deep Time

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.

Molecular interaction to provide more effective organic solar cellsImagine being able to build materials that can lead electricity by mixing the right molecules in a solution, spreading the solution out into a thin layer, and letting it dry! This is how simply constructed organic solar cells are. As opposed to today’s solar cells, which consist of delicate silicon discs, organic solar cells are made from carbon-based molecules. Two different molecules are needed, those that give off electrons, and those that receive them.

Up until a few years ago, organic solar cells could achieve an effectiveness of around 10 per cent, with fullerene-based molecues as the electron receivers. This means that 10 per cent of the Sun’s energy in the form of light shining onto the solar cell is converted into electric energy. But that is not enough, and a few years ago researchers managed to create new electron receiver molecules that meant organic solar cells can today convert 18 per cent of the Sun’s light into charges.

To achieve even greater effectiveness, better understanding is needed of how the electron giver and the electron receiver distribute themselves in the layer when the solution evaporates and the layer dries out, and how they both contribute to the absorption of sunlight.

We have previously studied how the drying process affects the inner structures and characteristics of the layer. In this project, we want to manipulate the structures afterwards, for example by exposing the layer to solvent vapour.

We are a mixed research team. Some researchers develop computer models of the molecules and develop simulation tools to optimise structures and characteristics. Others work with molecule solutions to achieve the desired structures in the layer, and then there are those that use advanced instruments to make visible small structures in the layer that cannot be seen by the eye, but are of great importance for the efficiency of the solar cell.

We hope to actualise organic solar cells with 20 per cent effectiveness, or even higher.

Project leader: Ellen Moons, Professor of Physics, Karlstad University

Project name: Donor-acceptor interfacial structure and photophysics in organic solar cells

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.

When proteins in biological cells must adapt to changes in their surroundings, they can clump together. Such protein aggregation occurs both in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons, and also in metabolic diseases, such as cancer and diabetes – diseases that are also associated with unbalanced metabolism.

The cause of this clumping together of proteins is unknown. We do not know if it is the protein clusters that change the metabolism, or if it is disruption of the metabolism that makes the proteins react in the way they do.

In my research project, I want to investigate what mechanisms lie behind these reactions, and how the packing of DNA molecules affects them. The ability of cells to handle stress has previously only been studied at group level. This means that it has not been possible to see how individual cells behave, and that how cells within a group differ has been missed.

With the help of ground-breking microscopy techniques, I will be studying in real time how individual molecules move in living cells. To begin with, I will be using bakers’ yeast, and then change to human liver cells.

By studying how protein aggregation is linked to metabolism and DNA, the understanding of the strategies that cells use to adapt to new conditions will be deepened. This opens the door to the possibility of developing patient-adapted medicine, and new strategies for healthy ageing.

In the future, this knowledge will be possible to apply to entire organs, to understand the causes of metabolic diseases, and eventually to find new ways of treating and preventing them. This can also be of importance for understanding how cells react to infections, or how to develop multi-stress-resistant organisms for studying the origin of life on Earth and other planets.

Project leader: Sviatlana Shashkova, Researcher at the Department of Physics, University of Gothenburg

Project name: One molecule at a time: revealing cell-to-cell heterogeneity upon adaptation to metabolic stress

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.

Climate change is making the greater part of the Arctic greener, with increasing shrub cover and rising tree lines. But in relation to how fast the warming is happening, the changes are often slower than expected.

What the Arctic ecosystems will look like, and how quickly the ecosystems can adapt to a changed climate, is still unclear. In particular, it is an open question whether the ecosystems will adapt gradually when the climate gets warmer, or if there will be sudden changes from one condition to another when the climate passes certain threshold values.

The latter is known as ‘alterrnative stable conditions’ and entails that ecosystems that are adapted to one climate retain their characters even when the climate changes. For example, open ground can continue to be open even if the climate causes growth of shrubs or forests, due to mechanisms that stabilise the current vegetation type. The hypothesis in this project is that alternative stable conditions can explain conflicting trends in Arctic vegetation.

We will be studying a treeline area near Abisko in northern Sweden with three delimited alternative stable conditions: mountain birch forest, shrubland, and mountain moors. With the help of both historic and new aerial photographs and satellite data, we will be mapping treeline changes and link them to potential driving factors.

To enable us to develop mathematical and spatial models of Arctic vegetation changes, we will also be conducting similar investigations in other locations in the Arctic. The models will be built up so they permit alternative stable conditions and regime changes. As a final step, they will be combined with data collected on factors such as the amount of soilbound carbon and carbon dioxide emissions in different vegetation conditions. The project will in this way contribute to better understanding of the Arctic ecosystems of the future, and their importance for the global carbon cycle.

Project leader: Matthias Benjamin Siewert, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Ecology, Environment and Geosciences, Umeå University

Project name: Greening of the Arctic: gradual or abrupt?

Read about the project in the Swecris database External link.