Princeton-Oxford-Cambridge Centre-to-Centre Collaboration on Soft Functional Energy Materials

普林斯顿-牛津-剑桥软功能能源材料中心间合作

• 批准号: EP/Z531303/1
• 负责人: Henning Sirringhaus
• 金额: $ 132.62万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FZ531303%2F1
• 关键词: Princeton; Oxford; Cambridge; Centre; Collaboration

Averting dangerous consequences of climate change and transitioning to societies that use our natural resources sustainably is one of the most existential challenges currently facing humanity. At the technological level, advanced energy materials are needed not only to sustain incremental advances in existing zero-carbon energy technologies, but also to address open technology challenges requiring disruptive breakthroughs. New, emerging classes of energy materials, such as perovskite semiconductors and organic/biologically inspired materials for solar energy harvesting and photovoltaics, or advanced electrode materials for batteries offer great opportunities for achieving higher performance, lower cost and better environmental sustainability than existing energy materials. However, many aspects of their operation remain poorly understood. This is related to their relatively disordered, non-single crystalline microstructures, with complex interfaces that are critical for device operation, and the presence of weakly, non-covalently bonded, functional groups and molecular units. This makes the materials mechanically soft and the dynamics of lattice vibrations has a strong effect on the charge carriers and electronic excitations. However, their performance is surprisingly tolerant to such static and dynamic disorder, which opens a wide space for materials exploration as we apparently do not always need structural perfection.This centre-to-centre collaboration brings together a team of energy materials researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford supported by the VETSOFT EPSRC programme grant with a world-leading group of researchers at Princeton University's Andlinger Centre for Energy and the Environment. Both centres have internationally leading, interdisciplinary teams with a broad spectrum of complementary techniques and scientific capabilities that can be applied and shared across traditional boundaries associated with different materials systems and/or applications. By not working in traditional silos, powerful synergies can be achieved. This is at the heart of the VETSOFT programme grant, which brings together researchers working in soft functional energy materials for diverse applications in photovoltaics, photocatalysis, thermal energy harvesting and energy storage. A similar philosophy also underpins Princeton's Andlinger Centre, which has available a largely complementary set of capabilities.The proposed centre-to-centre collaboration aims to achieve a deeper atomistic understanding and control of important physical processes in soft functional energy materials, in turn driving tangible enhancements in energy materials performance and new device concepts. We have identified three grand research challenges (RCs) for which there is a high added value from the collaboration between the two centres and for which complementary scientific capabilities and methodologies available at the two centres are needed. The centre-to-centre collaboration will allow us to tackle these in a more effective way than any of the participating groups could on their own. The first two RCs address scientific bottlenecks that are holding back the application of perovskite semiconductors in solar cells and of electrode materials for batteries: We will develop approaches for controlled doping of metal halide perovskite semiconductors and new battery anode materials based on niobium tungsten oxides capable of fast charging. The third one aims to achieve a deeper, fundamental understanding of energy transfer processes in biological energy harvesting. The proposed centre-to-centre collaboration will also provide a vehicle for encouraging other, exploratory research projects in advanced energy materials between groups at the two centres, that will lead to a sustained, effective partnership between the two centres outlasting the 4-year funding period of the proposed project.

避免气候变化的危险后果，向可持续利用自然资源的社会过渡，是人类目前面临的最严峻挑战之一。在技术层面，不仅需要先进能源材料来维持现有零碳能源技术的渐进式进步，还需要解决需要颠覆性突破的开放性技术挑战。新的新兴能源材料类别，如钙钛矿半导体和用于太阳能收集和光电转换的有机/生物启发材料，或用于电池的先进电极材料，为实现比现有能源材料更高的性能，更低的成本和更好的环境可持续性提供了巨大的机会。然而，对其运作的许多方面仍然知之甚少。这与它们相对无序的非单晶微结构有关，具有对器件操作至关重要的复杂界面，以及存在弱的非共价键合的官能团和分子单元。这使得材料机械柔软，晶格振动的动力学对电荷载流子和电子激发有很强的影响。然而，它们的表现令人惊讶地容忍这种静态和动态的混乱，这为材料探索开辟了广阔的空间，因为我们显然并不总是需要结构完美。这种中心对中心的合作汇集了剑桥和牛津大学的能源材料研究人员团队，由VETSOFT EPSRC计划资助，普林斯顿大学安德林格能源与环境中心的领导研究小组。这两个中心都拥有国际领先的跨学科团队，拥有广泛的互补技术和科学能力，可以跨越与不同材料系统和/或应用相关的传统界限进行应用和共享。通过不在传统的孤岛中工作，可以实现强大的协同作用。这是VETSOFT项目资助的核心，该项目汇集了研究软功能能源材料的研究人员，这些材料用于光电子学，电子学，热能收集和能量存储的各种应用。类似的理念也支撑着普林斯顿大学的Andlinger中心，该中心拥有一套很大程度上互补的能力。拟议的中心对中心的合作旨在实现对软功能能源材料中重要物理过程的更深入的原子理解和控制，从而推动能源材料性能和新器件概念的切实增强。我们已经确定了三个重大的研究挑战（RC），这两个中心之间的合作具有很高的附加值，需要两个中心互补的科学能力和方法。中心与中心之间的合作将使我们能够以比任何参与团体单独行动更有效的方式解决这些问题。前两个RC解决了阻碍钙钛矿半导体在太阳能电池和电池电极材料中应用的科学瓶颈：我们将开发金属卤化物钙钛矿半导体的受控掺杂方法和基于铌钨氧化物的新型电池阳极材料，能够快速充电。第三个目标是实现更深入的，基本的理解生物能量收集的能量转移过程。拟议的中心对中心合作还将提供一种手段，鼓励两个中心的小组之间在先进能源材料方面开展其他探索性研究项目，这将导致两个中心之间在拟议项目的四年供资期之后建立持续有效的伙伴关系。