Introducing Instituto Pedro Nunes

Introducing APOLLO consortium member - IPN - Instituto Pedro Nunes.

Created in 1991 through a University of Coimbra initiative, Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN) is a private non-profit organisation that promotes innovation and technology transfer, establishing a connection between the scientific and technological environment and the production sector.

Its mission is to leverage a robust university-enterprise relationship for the promotion of innovation, rigour, quality, and entrepreneurship in private and public sector organisations by acting in three complementary areas: Research and technological development, consultancy and specialised services; Incubation and acceleration of businesses and ideas; and Highly specialised training and promotion of science and technology.

IPN’s technological infrastructure includes a set of six laboratories in diversified technological areas, among which the Laboratory for Wear, Testing & Materials (LED&MAT) is directly linked to APOLLO, and where it is developed R&D activities and technology transfer to enterprises in the field of materials and fabrication processes, surface modification, energy efficiency, and fabrication by innovative technologies. IPN’s LED&MAT also performs diverse tests for characterising physical, chemical, mechanical and tribological properties on multiple types of materials, aiming to establish a perfect symbiosis between fundamental research and industrial application. 

In the APOLLO project, IPN will be responsible for implementing unique approaches to analyse, systematise (database) and stream end-of-life PV materials, and most importantly, scalable methods to assess glass chemical composition inline.