Descrizione del progetto
Nuovi gruppi catalitici trasformano la luce solare e l’anidride carbonica in combustibile prezioso
Da tempo i ricercatori sognano di imitare la fotosintesi, sfruttando l’energia solare per generare combustibili chimici. Si tratta di uno dei percorsi più promettenti per soddisfare in maniera sostenibile il fabbisogno energetico del futuro. Tuttavia, ci manca un sistema che possa dirigere le eccitazioni della luce verso i prodotti chimici desiderati con elevata efficienza e stabilità, in difficili condizioni di reazione. Il progetto SECANS, finanziato dall’UE, è volto a creare una solida base scientifica per dispositivi da solari a chimici che possano raggiungere combinazioni senza precedenti di efficienza e stabilità. Il progetto lo realizzerà usando semiconduttori a base di nitruro di metallo di transizione, una classe inesplorata di materiali per la catalisi e l’assorbimento di luce. I ricercatori SECANS svilupperanno innovativi semiconduttori a base di nitruro ottimizzati per la conversione di energia da solare a chimica, chiariranno i ruoli dei difetti e forniranno nuovi spunti per la scienza della stabilità fotochimica.
Obiettivo
As photovoltaic technologies gain prominence, an outstanding challenge is the development of systems that can robustly store solar energy with high density. Within this context, the capture of sunlight and its direct conversion to chemical fuels in artificial photosystems provides a promising route for sustainably meeting future energy demands. However, a central challenge is the lack of systems that can efficiently direct light excitations towards desired chemical products with high efficiency and stability under harsh reaction conditions. In recent years, advances in using thin films to protect chemically sensitive light absorbers have relaxed the requirement for intrinsically stable semiconductors and motivate an entirely new perspective for rational design of materials and interfaces. Within this context, SECANS aims to create the scientific basis for solar-to-chemical devices that achieve unprecedented combinations of efficiency and stability, enabled by targeted exploration and rational optimization of an underexplored class of materials – transition metal nitride semiconductors. The electronic structures of these materials can enable a favourable balance between large charge carrier mobility and high defect tolerance. However, due to the high stability of molecular nitrogen, the expansive range of possible nitrides is largely unexplored and their basic properties poorly understood. SECANS overcomes these challenges through an interdisciplinary approach that couples non-equilibrium semiconductor deposition and newly developed interface engineering methods, supported by advanced operando spectroscopies, to enable high efficiency light harvesting systems with self-healing interfaces. This project will develop novel nitride semiconductors optimized for solar-to-chemical energy conversion, elucidate the roles of defects and disorder on competitive kinetics within photochemical reaction cycles, and provide new insights into the science of photochemical stability.
Campo scientifico
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energysolar energy
- natural scienceschemical sciencesphysical chemistryphotochemistry
- natural sciencesphysical scienceselectromagnetism and electronicssemiconductivity
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsenergy conversion
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsspectroscopy
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantIstituzione ospitante
80333 Muenchen
Germania