Green flexible organic photovoltaics for energy-autonomous electronics

物联网(IoT)革命和英国到2050年实现净零碳排放的战略要求建立高效的能源清理技术，这些技术可以用来为用于传感、处理和通信数据的小型电子设备提供动力。这些技术的发展对于支持普适计算和人工智能方面的现代社会需求至关重要。然而，与此同时，考虑到产品的整个生命周期--从原材料和制造到报废--的环境友好(绿色)方法，建立这种技术变得至关重要。因此，重要的是尽可能减少有毒材料和化学品的使用，并制定程序，而不需要使用消耗大量能源的设备。一个关键的例子是硅光伏行业，该行业在生产过程中使用了不易回收的有毒化学物质。据估计，到2050年，仅硅太阳能电池板就将产生超过6000万吨的废物。该奖学金的目的是开发新的自我供电的电子技术，而不需要电池供电；所有这些都是用绿色材料和低能耗制造技术开发的。沿着这些思路，我将使用有机半导体(OSC)，它允许开发高性能的光伏电池，而不会产生有毒材料。与PV中使用的替代传统材料相比，我的方法将允许易于加工、低成本制造并获得高性能。这将需要适当的设备工程和材料加工策略，以在刚性和柔性衬底上制作高性能OPV的原型。同时，我将从绿色溶剂和材料中开发出低功耗的电子元件，如传感器和超级电容器，以便将它们与OPV耦合。这种电子设备的运行将主要通过灯光照明来实现，用于各种实际应用中的室外和室内条件。该奖学金的总体愿景是在物联网行业建立一条新的道路，使此类技术能够在难以触及的领域、可穿戴设备和一次性生物传感平台中使用。

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolution and UK's strategy to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 requires establishing efficient energy scavenging technologies that can be utilised to power small electronic devices for sensing, processing and communicating data. The development of such technologies is essential for supporting modern societal needs in ubiquitous computing and AI. At the same time however, it becomes of vital importance that such technologies are built with environmentally friendly (green) approaches, taking into account the entire life cycle of the product - from raw materials and manufacturing to end-of-life. It is thus important to minimise as much as possible the use of toxic materials and chemicals, as well as develop procedures without the need to utilise equipment that consume huge amounts of energy. A key example is the Si photovoltaics industry that employs toxic chemicals in their production that are not easy to be recycled. It has been estimated that by 2050, over 60 million tons of waste will be generated from silicon solar panels alone. The aim of this fellowship is to develop novel self-powered electronic technologies, without the need to be operated by batteries; all developed with green materials and low-energy manufacturing techniques. Along these lines, I will use organic semiconductors (OSCs) that allow developing high-performance photovoltaic cells without resourcing to toxic materials. When compared to alternative conventional materials used in PVs my approach will allow for easy processing, low-cost manufacturing and attaining high performance. This will entail appropriate device engineering and material's processing strategies for prototyping high performing OPVs on rigid and flexible substrates. In parallel, I will develop low power consuming electronic components such as, sensors and supercapacitors, from green solvents and materials, in order to couple them with OPVs. Operation of such electronics will be mainly attained via light illumination, for outdoor and indoor conditions that will be exploited in a variety of practical applications. The overarching vision of this fellowship is to establish a new pathway in the IoT industry, enabling the use of such technologies in hard-to-reach areas, wearables and disposable biosensing platforms.