Jordi Arbiol (ICREA & ICN2) describing one of the instruments of InCAEM.

InCAEM, In Situ Correlative Facility for Advanced Energy Materials, is a new facility now in construction at the ALBA Synchrotron premises that will be open to all the scientific community for studying advanced materials. On Friday, 14 April 2023, more than 70 members from different Catalan research institutions attended a workshop where InCAEM was presented and explored collaboration opportunities.

Eugenio Coronado introducing the Advanced Materials Program of the Planes Complementarios.

The ALBA Synchrotron hosted last Friday, 14 April 2023, the workshop "InCAEM-Planes Complementarios for the Catalan scientific community", where several research institutions from different areas of Catalonia took part. 

InCAEM is the Catalan contribution to the Advanced Materials Program of the Planes Complementarios.

After the introduction done by Eugenio Coronado (ICMoL, University of Valencia), Coordinator of the Spanish framework of this initiative, the facility, its design and construction state were described by Lucía Aballe (ALBA), Jordi Arbiol (ICREA & ICN2), Aitor Mugarza (ICREA & ICN2), Josep Nicolàs (ALBA) and Sergio Vicente (ALBA).

The second part of the workshop was devoted to the Catalan research groups which gathered in the workshop. Fifteen speakers showed the great breadth of the field, their national and international collaborations, and their connections with the industrial community. They highlighted their use of the existing analytical tools and explained how the future ones, like InCAEM, can contribute to further advance in their research.

The session ended with Klaus Attenkofer, scientific director of ALBA, who spoke about the scientific opportunities of ALBA and the future ALBA II in connection with InCAEM, and Caterina Biscari, ALBA director, who introduced the foreseen access modalities and the possibilities of future collaborations. A fruitful final discussion among the participants paved the way towards strengthening the existing links and develop new ones.

Top down, Núria Jiménez Divins (UPC) and Paulina R. Martínez-Alanis (IREC) presenting their projects in the session devoted to Catalan research groups working in Advanced Materials. Klaus Attenkofer, scientific director of ALBA, and Caterina Biscari, director of ALBA, in the last part of the workshop addressed to inform about the access to InCAEM and future collaborations.

A unique tool for boosting research on materials

InCAEM (In Situ Correlative Facility for Advanced Energy Materials) is a singular infrastructure open to all the scientific community for research in advanced materials, in order to address the scientific challenges of the European Green Deal, with a special focus on energy materials, with applications as batteries, solar cells or industrial catalysts.

The project has been funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Planes Complementarios programme, which includes NextGenerationEU funds. It is coordinated by the ALBA Synchrotron with the involvement of the following partners: the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), the Institute for Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), the Institute for High Energy Physics (IFAE) - Scientific Information Port (PIC).

InCAEM infrastructure is expected to be ready by mid 2025.