Solar Power
Access to abundant and renewable energy sources will clearly be a crucial challenge already in the next few decades.
Vision
Access to abundant and renewable energy sources will clearly be a crucial challenge already in the next few decades. Since the total solar energy that reaches the Earth exceeds our total energy consumption by a factor of ca 10 000, an attractive solution will be large-scale conversion of solar energy into electricity or energy-rich fuels. Technologies that convert solar energy into either electricity or hydrogen are becoming a future emerging technology. This may offer an ecologically sustainable solution to the global energy need.
Challenges
The challenges, common to both sub-fields, are dye molecules, mesoscopic electrodes and electrolytes. For the solar cells project, we aim to develop a more profound understanding of how the different components of the DSSC (dye-sensitized solar cells) interact, by investigating new types of dyes, semiconductor materials and electrolytes. Our target is to achieve a stable solar cell efficiency of at least 15% latest year 2020, thus allowing device commercialisation. For the water splitting project, we aim to adapt the DSSC technique into two half cell devices (water oxidation and proton reduction). For proton reduction, the focus will be on bio-inspired molecular catalysts. Direct hydrogen production with photocatalysts based on different band gap semiconductors will also be actively pursued. The target of this sub-project is to produce a functional device with a hydrogen production efficiency of ca 8% latest the year 2015
Research groups
These are the research groups in KTH's school organisation performing research related to solar power.