Tarancón Rubio, Albert
ICREA Research Professor and Head of Group at Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya (IREC).
Engineering Sciences
Short biography
Albert holds M.Sc. and PhD in Physics from the University of Barcelona (2001, 2007) and M. Eng. in Materials Science from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (2007). He worked as research associate at the IMB-CSIC (ES) and as visiting researcher at the University of Oslo (NO), Imperial College London (UK) and Caltech (USA). In 2010, Albert gained a Ramon y Cajal Fellowship and joined the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC) as the Head of Group. Since 2018, he is ICREA Professor at IREC and leads a group of 30+ people devoted to alternative technologies based on solid state ionics and iontronics. He has been PI of 12 EU projects, including one ERC-CoG, one ERC-PoC and four coordinated actions, attracting a total amount of 25+ M€. He is editor of J. Phys. Energy (IoP), APL Energy (AIP) and J. Eur. Ceram. Soc. (Elsevier). Albert is included in the 1% top-cited scientists in the field of “Energy”.
Research interests
The research work carried out by Albert is in advanced materials for energy applications. In particular, he has been developing innovative concepts for improving the performance of different solid state energy devices such as Solid Oxide Fuel and Electrolysis Cells (SOFC/SOEC), ThermoElectric Generators (TEGs) or Li-ion batteries for energy storage and portable power applications. In the last years, Albert has been specifically developing new concepts for the unexplored field of Nanoionics and Iontronics. They are called to drive a new revolution similarly to Nanoelectronics, underlining the relevance of size effects and interfaces on mass transfer, transport and storage. Albert's group is pioneer in implementing interface-dominated nanomaterials in devices for radically new applications. In this direction, he was awarded with an ERC CoG to implement disruptive Nanoionics concepts in Si-integrated micro-SOFC technology and two FET Proactive projects on new microenergy technologies. From this recent activity, Albert's group developed unprecedented synaptic transistors based on oxide-ion conductors in the frame of their Transionics ERC-PoC project. This can be considered the starting point for a new class of switchable devices that will boos the future Ion Age.