Website: www.cea.fr

The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission is a public body established in October 1945. As leader in research, development and innovation, the CEA is active in four main areas: low-carbon energies, defence and security, information technologies and health technologies. In each of these fields, the CEA maintains a cross disciplinary culture of engineers and researchers, building on the synergies between fundamental and technological research.
As a prominent player in the European Research Area, with an internationally acknowledged level of expertise in its core competencies, CEA is engaged in collaborative projects with leading academic and industrial partners from around the world. Within CEA, the Technological Research Division boasts three operational institutes providing innovative research to improve industrial competitiveness through technology transfer: CEALeti, focused on microelectronics, information & healthcare technologies, CEA-Liten centred on new energy technologies and CEA-List dedicated to technologies for digital systems.
The Novel Materials Technologies department is focused on a Circular economy approach for the sustainable growth of materials with new properties and components with improved functionalities.

Three strategic axes Materials Chemistry, Structural Electronics and Additive Manufacturing processes are settled in order to tackle materials’ and processes innovation driven by three main pillars:
1) Safer materials, with the aim to developing smart and safer by design materials with an environmental and societal concern, oriented to air treatment, catalysts development, nanoparticles release, VOC.
2) Smart materials and components, focusing on materials modelling, novel smart materials with new properties and improved functionalities, new components, Energy and resources efficiency: net shape Processes, substitution, recycling and Embedded electronics and
3) Sustainable materials components and processes, targeting higher life time products, validation of recycled raw materials, fundamental understanding of materials, structure and their properties and Eco-design – Recyclable by Design processes.

CEA will be involved in different tasks in the MERLIN project, with particular regards to polymers valorization of flexible food packaging from delamination process, and that thanks to scientific knowledge, background of many years and process tools for processing and shaping functional polymers, advanced polymers and second life polymers.
Thanks to state of the art characterisation tools, including those necessary for the characterisation of thermoplastics and virgin or recycled composites (mechanical, rheological, thermal, microscopic, surface tension, etc. characterisation…), CEA will also contribute to the recycled materials characterization.