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.

避免气候变化和过渡到可持续使用我们自然资源的社会的危险后果是目前面临的人类最存在的挑战之一。在技​​术层面上，不仅需要先进的能源材料来维持现有的零碳能量技术的增量进步，而且还需要应对需要破坏性突破的开放技术挑战。新的，新兴的能源材料（例如钙钛矿半导体）以及有机/生物学启发的太阳能收集和光伏材料，或用于电池的先进电极材料，可为实现更高的性能，更低的成本和更好的环境可持续性提供了绝佳的机会，而不是现有能源材料。但是，他们的运营的许多方面仍然很少理解。这与它们相对无序的非单个晶体微观结构有关，其复杂界面对于设备操作至关重要，并且存在弱，非共价键合，官能团和分子单位。这使材料机械柔软，晶格振动的动力学对电荷载体和电子激发产生了强大影响。但是，它们的表现令人惊讶地宽容这种静态和动态混乱，这为材料探索开辟了广泛的空间，因为我们显然并不总是需要结构性的完美。这些中心与中心的合作将剑桥大学和牛津大学的能源材料研究人员组合在一起，由Vetsoft EPSRC计划赠款与世界成长的研究员和著作《王室成员》杂志的环境研究员和王室成员的王室成员。这两个中心都拥有国际领先的跨学科团队，具有广泛的互补技术和科学能力，可以在与不同材料系统和/或应用程序相关的传统边界上应用和共享。通过不从事传统孤岛，可以实现强大的协同作用。这是Vetsoft计划赠款的核心，该授权将研究人员汇集在一起​​，从事软功能材料的研究人员，用于光伏，光催化，热能收集和能量存储中的各种应用。类似的哲学还为普林斯顿的安德林格中心（Andlinger Center）提供了基础，该中心在很大程度上提供了一组互补的能力集。拟议中的中心合作旨在实现对软功能能量材料中重要物理过程的更深入的原子理解和控制，从而推动了能源材料性能和新设备概念的切实能力增强。我们已经确定了三个宏伟的研究挑战（RC），这两个中心之间的合作以及需要在这两个中心可用的互补科学能力和方法中具有很高的附加值。中心合作的合作将使我们能够以比任何参与团体独自一人更有效的方式来解决这些问题。前两个RCS解决了科学的瓶颈，这些瓶颈阻止了钙钛矿半导体在太阳能电池中的应用和电池电极材料的应用：我们将开发用于控制金属Halide perovskite半导体和新的电池阳极材料的方法，这些方法基于基于Niobium Tungsten氧化物，能够快速充电。第三个旨在实现对生物能量收集中能量转移过程的更深入的，基本的理解。拟议中的中心合作还将提供一种工具，以鼓励两个中心的小组之间的高级能源材料中的其他探索性研究项目，这将导致两个中心之间的持续，有效的合作伙伴关系，超过了拟议项目的4年资金时期。