Climate change has been an established fact in the scientific world for decades, but only recently the non-scientific world has started realizing that it will have a major impact even on society and economy. In addition, more and more evidences indicate that the global heating is correlated by a cause-effect relation with the huge impact that mankind is imposing to Earth, which is so evident that geologists have coined the term Anthropocene to describe the current period. As scientists, we are called to face the new challenges of the green deal, aimed at reducing the anthropic impact and fixing the damage that it has already brought to our planet.
Nanoscience Institute of CNR, since its birth, has activated research lines aimed at the optimization of materials and devices to be used in the different aspects of the green economy, namely, green energy production, storage, and use from renewable sources, zero green-house emission strategies, hydrogen economy, anti-pollution, filtering, and green-house gas sequestration. These activities, carried on by over forty researchers, including research staff, post docs, and students, distributed in the two units of Pisa and Modena, are grouped in the three following areas: