On Friday, April 14, the Akron Section of the American Chemical Society will be holding its annual Crano Memorial Lecture and dinner. This year, it will be on the Kent Campus, in the Integrated Sciences Building. The schedule is as follows:
5:30pm: Networking
6:30pm: Dinner
7:00pm: Lecture (open to the public)
The lecture, Reducing Carbon Footprint with Next Generation Photovoltaics, will be presented by Dr. Prashant V. Kamat (Notre Dame University). In addition, Outstanding Junior Chemistry Award Winners will be acknowledged, and the Gene Easter Award will be presented prior to Dr. Kamat's lecture. Dinner reservations are $10 for students and $30 for ACS members and the general public. Register for this event using the button below.
"Reducing Carbon Footprint with Next Generation Photovoltaics"
Silicon photovoltaics are regarded as part of green energy technology. However, they carry significantly longer (as high as 3 years) energy payback time. Semiconductor nanostructures are finding new ways to design light energy conversion devices (e.g., thin film solar cells and light emitting devices). The thin film design enabled through low temperature processing decreases the energy payback time. The decreased consumption of energy during the manufacture and the lessened use of semiconductor materials lowers the overall carbon footprint with energy payback time less than a year. The early studies focused on the synthesis of various semiconductor nanostructures and exploration of their size dependent optical and electronic properties. Careful engineering efforts in recent years have led to their integration in high efficiency thin film solar cells. Metal halide perovskite solar cells, in particular can now deliver efficiencies greater than 26%, thus matching the power conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells. Recent developments in utilizing semiconductor quantum dots for light energy conversion devices and how they can influence decreasing carbon footprint will be discussed. Efforts are needed to address the stability issues, to assess environmental impacts and to transform current practices of energy utilization.
Additional Readings
- Kamat, P. V. Quantum Dot Solar Cells. The Next Big Thing in Photovoltaics, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2013, 4, 908–918.
- DuBose, J. T.; Kamat, P. V., Efficacy of Perovskite Photocatalysis: Challenges to Overcome. ACS Energy Letters 2022, 7, 1994-2011
- DuBose, J. T.; Kamat, P. V., Hole Trapping in Halide Perovskites Induces Phase Segregation. Accounts of Materials Research 2022, 3, 761-771
- DuBose, J. T.; Kamat, P. V., Energy Versus Electron Transfer: Managing Excited-State Interactions in Perovskite Nanocrystal–Molecular Hybrids. Chemical Reviews 2022, 122, 15, 12475–12494
- Kamat, P. V.; Kuno, M., Halide Ion Migration in Perovskite Nanocrystals and Nanostructures. Accounts of Chemical Research 2021, 54 (3), 520-531.
