GreenPerovs: Green, Efficient, and Stable Halide Perovskites for Heterogeneous Photocatalysis

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Energy and environmental issues are increasingly crucial to all industry sectors across Europe and the rest of the world because the primary energy sources remain fossil fuels. Our continued dependence on these limited reserves has led to significant climate change. The need to move to a more sustainable energy economy was well perceived at the COP26 summit held in Glasgow. However, chemical production still lags in utilising renewable carbon as a feedstock. The European Commission (EU) has already recognised the urgent need for progress through the European Green Deal, aiming to make Europe carbon neutral by 2050. To achieve this ambitious goal which will contribute to the MSCA's Green Charter, improvement in a wide range of technologies is required, and this must be driven by materials innovation. The proposed project (GreenPerovs: Green, Efficient, and Stable Halide Perovskites for Heterogeneous Photocatalysis) will contribute to a green and sustainable chemicals and energy future by exploring low-cost, environmentally friendly, and stable semiconductor photocatalysts based on 3D (bulk) and 2D (two-dimensional) halide perovskites. GreenPerovs will use density functional theory (DFT) to study material stability as a function of composition and simulated photocatalysed reactions, including H2 production through water splitting, CO2 reduction to methanol and formic acid, and photochemical removal of organic pollutants. The research will focus on developing new formulations for lead-free halide perovskites produced from earth-abundant elements, which have the potential either to replace traditional photocatalysts or increase the efficiency of commonly used photocatalysts.