LuSH Art · Luminescent Solar Heterostructures for Artificial photosynthesis
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-03-16 → 2022-05-30
- EU contribution
- €171,473
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-RI
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Luminescent Solar Heterostructures for Artificial photosynthesis
Energy consumption is increasing every year, and currently, about 81% of world energy supply is from fossil fuels. Despite the economic slowdown for the COVID-19 pandemic, the global average annual carbon dioxide concentration has set to rise again during the 2021, reaching a new record. The energy from the Sun on the Earth’s surface in less than two hours matches the current global energy consumption in a year. If we were able to properly use it, we would largely satisfy the entire energy demand of the humankind and decrease the pollution created by the combustion of fossil fuels. Yet, solar light is diffuse and intermittent, suggesting that a cost-effective and efficient way to store its energy it is necessary. A way to overcome these issues is the production of simple fuels (e.g., H2, CH3OH, C2H5OH), which can efficiently store energy in their chemical bonds. An environmental-friendly way to produce them is to use incident solar photon energy to drive energetically uphill reactions, such as the water splitting and the reduction of CO2. The natural global demand of the incident solar energy is 5000 times less than the incident solar light. Therefore, harvesting such enormous excess to produce fuels from water and CO2 offers an extraordinary opportunity to “take three pigeons with the same stone”, namely a) to reduce CO2 pollution, b) to address the energy supply and storage, and c) to wean the humankind off the fossil fuels dependence, in agreement with the United Nations sustainable development goals n° 7 and n° 13.The final objectives of LuSH Art are to develop new hybrid nano heterostructures and to develop new luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) for solar fuels production by taking inspiration from the energy migration approach that occurs in a natural leaf.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
LuSH Art aims at developing new heterostructured hybrid nanomaterials which are light powered by energy migration and to fabricate new luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) taking inspiration from a tree leaf. Reduction of CO2 level in atmosphere is a crucial problem for the life survival on Earth and most of the countries, included EU, has challenging goals to decrease it in the future decades. The production of solar fuels (e.g. H2, CH4) from water splitting and CO2 reduction by photocatalysis can be a key tool in this direction. Although the progresses in this field have a high pace, both scientific and technical important issues are still opened. In multielectron chemistry, the solar light absorption by the sensitizer is the limiting step. In nature, plants and algae are highly efficient at converting CO2 in fuels working at low light flux thanks to energy transfer. Molecular antennas, transferring energy among them, funnel it to a single catalytic reaction center. This is the inspiring principle of LuSH Art, where heterostructured nanomaterials based on colloidal quantum dots (QDs) and J-aggregates will be applied. New light harvesting antennas based on self-assembly aggregation, either from organic molecules or QDs, will be used to fast deliver energy to reactive centers. By controlling the morphology and the chemical composition, non-toxic core/shell QDs will be applied either as sensitizer or as photocatalyst, in colloidal and in film form. These heterostructures will be integrated in a new LSC for artificial photosynthesis. This project, which involves industrial collaboration, has a multidisciplinary approach and its possible outcomes could impact several other research fields in chemistry and material science. The experience and the skills that I gained during my period abroad will be crucial for this project, which would have a great positive impact on my researcher career, allowing me to start my research field.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- POLITECNICO DI TORINO · TorinoCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union