Electrochemistry plays a focal role in the development of better and more efficient catalytic processes for the use of electricity to form or break chemical bonds.
This discipline is closely associated with the development of new renewable energy solutions, such as energy storage (electrolysers, ammonia and other renewable fuels) and chemical production (from CO or biomass). In particular, electrocatalysis has allowed in recent years to achieve significant development on material development and reaction optimization for processes aiming at the synthesis of chemicals and renewable fuels. With this symposium, we want to highlight the scientific excellence in this field.
- Materials and electrochemistry of N-containing compounds
- Materials and electrochemistry of carbon dioxide reduction
- Electrocatalytic synthesis of high-value compounds: new routes and materials
- Electrochemistry for the valorization of biomass
Raffaella Buonsanti obtained her PhD in Nanochemistry in 2010 at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory, University of Salento. Then, she moved to the US where she spent over five years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, first as a postdoc and project scientist at the Molecular Foundry and after as a tenure-track staff scientist in the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. In October 2015 she started as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at EPFL. She is passionate about materials chemistry, nanocrystals, understanding nucleation and growth mechanisms, energy, chemical transformations.
Marta Hatzell is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to starting at Georgia Tech in August of 2015, she was a Post-Doctoral researcher in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois - Urbana-Campaign. During her post doc, she worked in the Braun Research group on research at the interface between colloid science and electrochemistry. She completed her PhD at Penn state University in the Logan Research Group. Her PhD explored environmental technology for energy generation and water treatment. During graduate school she was an NSF and PEO Graduate Research Fellow.
Currently her research group focuses on exploring the role photochemistry and electrochemistry may play in future sustainable systems. She is an active member of the American Chemical Society, the Electrochemical Society, ASEEP, AICHE, and ASME. Dr. Hatzell has also been awarded the NSF Early CAREER award in 2019, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Chemistry in 2020, the ONR Young Investigator Award in 2020, the ECS Toyota Young Investigator award in 2021, and the Moore Inventor Fellow in 2021.
I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Montreal, Department of Chemistry. My overarching motivation is to discover and implement the chemistry necessary to transition to a sustainable energy-based society. Specifically, I am developing materials to convert solar energy to chemical fuels as an energy storage media.
Victor Mougel completed his Bachelor's and Master's degree in Chemistry at the ENS of Lyon, and obtained his PhD at the University of Grenoble under the supervision of Prof. Marinella Mazzanti. He then joined ETH Zürich as an ETH/Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow before starting his independent career as a CNRS associate researcher at Collège de France in 2016. Since December 2018, he is a tenure track assistant professor at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zürich.
Ifan is Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London. Prior to Ifan's appointment at Imperial in 2017, he was Asssociate Professor and Leader of the Electrocatalysis Group at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).In 2015, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) appointed Ifan as the Peabody Visiting Associate Professor.
Ifan leverages the insight from fundamental electrochemistry experiments to discover new catalyst materials with unprecedented performance. Ifan’s research ultimately aims to enable the large-scale electrochemical conversion of renewable energy to fuels and valuable chemicals and vice versa. He has 62 peer reviewed publications, 2 patents, 4 patent applicaitons and is cofounder of the spinout company, HPNow.
Electrochemical processes play a pivotal role in renewable energy conversion and storage and provide an avenue to produce fuels and chemical feedstocks sustainably.
The search for new catalysts with improved efficiency, stability and selectivity for these processes relies on gaining fundamental understanding of reaction mechanisms at polarized interfaces.
Consequently, operando or in situ characterization of complex interfaces with increased spatiotemporal resolution is key to advancing knowledge-guided catalyst design. This symposium invites contributions on the latest developments in operando investigation of electrocatalytic reactions, including but not limited to water electrolysis, fuel cells, carbon dioxide reduction, nitrogen reduction and alcohol oxidation.
Electrocatalytic reactions near room temperature in aqueous, non-aqueous and ionic liquids are of interest on materials ranging from single crystals to gas diffusion electrodes. The sessions will include research performed using and/or developing optical, X-ray, and vibrational spectroscopy, surface diffraction, mass spectrometry and microscopy techniques, as well as latest advances in theoretical and modeling approaches to interpret experimental data and consequently understand complex mechanisms at electrochemical interfaces.
- In situ and operando spectroscopy (optical, vibrational, X-ray) and diffraction of reactive interfaces
- In situ and operando microscopy and surface imaging
- On-line mass spectrometry of gases and liquid products
- Theory guided interpretation of operando data
- Instrumental advances and developments of new methods for operando characterization
Dr. Kelsey A. Stoerzinger joined Oregon State University as an Assistant Professor and Callahan Faculty Scholar in the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering in the Fall of 2018. She holds a joint appointment at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where she was a Linus Pauling Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow. Kelsey completed her doctoral studies in Materials Science and Engineering in 2016 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She received an M.Phil. in Physics from the University of Cambridge as a Churchill Scholar and a B.S. from Northwestern University. Prof. Stoerzinger is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2020) and the Doctoral New Investigator Award of the ACS-PRF (2019), in addition to recognition for her contributions as a teacher and advisor.
Dr. Chris Baeumer is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) for Electrochemistry of Nanostructures in the Inorganic Materials Science group at the University of Twente and associate research group leader at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. His research focuses on model electrochemical materials and interfaces with precisely controlled, single-crystalline surfaces, and their operando X-ray characterization to reveal the atomic details of complex oxide electrode materials at the solid/liquid interface. For this work, he was awarded the ERC Starting Grant. Before moving to the University of Twente, he was a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at Stanford University and RWTH Aachen University.
Doing my BSc/MSc in Physics and PhD in an interdisciplinary program crossing the disciplines like Chemical Engineering, Nanotechnology, and Electrochemistry made me who I am today – a scientist who enjoys the challenge of multifaceted research.
I enjoy doing basic research in order to solve applied tasks. This explains my research interest in fundamental physical chemistry, e.g. oxidation and dissolution of metals and semiconductors, electrocatalysis, and electrochemistry at modified interfaces but also electrochemical engineering, e.g. development and optimization of catalyst layers in fuel cells and water electrolyzes.
Progress in basic research is often a direct outcome of previous achievements in experimental instrumentation. Hence, a significant part of my interest is in the development of new tools, e.g. electrochemical on-line mass spectrometry, gas diffusion electrode approaches, and high-throughput screening methods.
I am currently a joint project researcher between Malmö University and the Nanomax beamline at MAX IV, my current projects focus on Bragg Coherent Diffraction Imaging (BCDI) of nanoparticles in the electrochemical environment and in situ grazing incidence XAFS. I am also actively involved in the development of in situ high-energy surface x-ray diffraction, performing experiments and writing software for data treatment.
I got my Ph.D. in 2016 from the University of Liverpool where my thesis focused on using surface x-ray diffraction to investigate fundamental electrocatalysis. Afterwards I was a postdoc at Lund university, where I focused on combining various synchrotron techniques with anodisation, corrosion, and electrodeposition. I then continued another two years at Lund and worked on in situ high-energy surface x-ray diffraction and some in-situ AP-XPS measurements. Afterwards I did another postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in the Nano-electrochemistry group.
One of my goals is to use synchrotron-based techniques to establish structure-function relationships for model electrocatalysts that will hopefully lead to the development of new catalysts, and a sustainable future. Also it's fun to learn new things, "stupid" experiments sometimes take us to unexpected places.
Magalí Lingenfelder is currently leading the Max Planck-EPFL Laboratory for Molecular Nanoscience in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her vision is to create atomically tailored interfaces for applications in two distinct areas of urgent technological and societal relevance: energy conversion and antimicrobial interfaces.
She studied physical and biological chemistry at the National University of Córdoba in Argentina. In 2003 she finished her MSc thesis at the Max Planck Institute for the Solid State Research (MPI-FKF in Stuttgart, Germany) with seminal contributions to the field of metal-organic coordination networks on solid surfaces. She continued with her doctoral studies in Physics, and received the Otto Hahn medal of the Max Planck Society in 2008 for the microscopic understanding of the chiral recognition process with submolecular resolution. In her quest to study molecular recognition going from 2D to 3D complex systems, she made postdoctoral stays at the Institute of Materials Sciences in Barcelona, and at the Molecular Foundry of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in the US.
She is a committed mentor, and since her relocation from Berkeley to EPFL in 2013, she directed 3 MSc theses, 4 PhD theses, and 4 postdocs. She advocates for problem-oriented interdisciplinary research: she is pioneering the emerging field of BioNanoarchitectonics, she led 5 international research consortiums, delivered over 40 invited presentations, and organized 9 conferences and 4 doctoral schools. In 2018, the Royal Society of Chemistry included her work in the first collection “Celebrating Excellence in Research: 100 Women of Chemistry”.
Technologically relevant electrochemical devices such as fuel cells or batteries still rely either on high loadings of precious metals (e.g. Pt, Ir) or the use of unsustainable materials like graphite anodes or cobalt-containing cathodes. Beside costs, these critical raw materials (CRM) need ideally to be replaced, reduced in their content or recycled to reach sustainability. The predicted future growth in battery production leads to an urge in finding sustainable solutions, while second use and recycling is also targeted. The growing efforts to utilize hydrogen in alternative energy grids also call for sustainable materials in energy conversion, since wide application will need to rely on abundant elements. Sodium ion batteries hold promise to allow improved sustainability and recent progress has led to first commercial products. In energy conversion, the most promising class of sustainable and CRM-free electrocatalysts is the group of atomically dispersed M-N-Cs. Despite large recent progress, further optimization to reach competitive performance and stability is needed.
This symposium shall be a platform for exchange and discussing recent progress in the field of sustainable materials for energy storage and conversion applications with a focus on sodium ion batteries and PEM fuel cell, however open to related employment of electrode materials.
- Na ion battery materials
- M-N-C Catalysts
- Electrolysis catalysts
- In-situ diagnostics of electrodes
- Performance optimization
Dr. Fellinger is a nanostructure and molecular scientist by training (diploma at University of Kassel, DE), who received his PhD in colloid chemistry (with summa cum laude) at the University of Potsdam/DE under the direct supervision of Prof. Markus Antonietti in 2011. After a short postdoctoral stays at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Prof. Ichiro Yamanaka) he was a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm (2012-2017). In 2016/17 he was an awarded Researcher-in-Residence at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Gothenburg (Prof. Anders Palmqvist), followed by one term as W2-substitute professor for inorganic chemistry at the University of Applied Science Zittau/Görlitz. Afterwards until 2020 he joined Prof. Hubert Gasteiger´s Chair for Technical Electrochemistry (Technical University Munich) with a fuel cell project. In 2020 Dr. Fellinger´s group joined the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin. Dr. Fellinger received the Donald-Ulrich Award 2017 of the International Sol-Gel Society and the Ernst-Haage Award for Chemistry of the Max-Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion. His research interests are the synthetic chemistry of novel materials and their usage in energy-related applications with a focus on different carbon-based materials like nitrogen-doped carbons, M-N-C catalysts or hard carbon anodes. He has published >50 articles in peer-reviewed journals (>5300 citations, H-index: 35).
Corina Andronescu received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University Politehnica of Bucharest (Romania) in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Her Ph.D. title she received from the same university in 2014. In 2016 she joined the group of Prof. W. Schuhmann (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany) first as postdoctoral researcher and later as group leader. December 2018, she was appointed Junior Professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen, where she is currently leading the group of Electrochemical Catalysis in the Faculty of Chemistry. Her research interests include development of hybrid electrocatalysts for the CO2 electroreduction reaction, alcohol electrooxidation as well as investigation of electrocatalysts at nanoscale using Scanning Electrochemical Cell Microscopy.
Dr. Camélia Matei Ghimbeu is a Research Director at Material Science Institute in Mulhouse (IS2M), CNRS, France. She received in 2007 her PhD from University of Metz, France and TU Delft, The Netherlands and her Habilitation in 2015 from University of Haute Alsace, France. She was awarded in 2017 the CNRS Bronze Medal, in 2018 the Award "Solid-State Chemistry Division" (French Chemistry Society) and in 2019 the award Guy Ourisson (Gutenberg Cercle), for her research works devoted to the design of carbon-based materials with controlled characteristics for energy storage and environmental applications. Author of more than 100 articles and about 150 communications, she is leading the “Carbon and Hybrid Materials” group at IS2M, and she is member of French network of Electrochemical Storage of Energy (RS2E).
Dr. Maria Gimenez is Principal Investigator at CiQUS, Ramon y Cajal at the University of Santiago de Compostela and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham. In 2006 she received her PhD from the University of Valencia working under the supervision of Prof Eugenio Coronado and Dr. Francisco M. Romero on multifunctional materials of interest in molecular magnetism. She then joined the Supramolecular Chemistry and Chemical Nanosciences Group of Prof. Neil Champness working as postdoctoral research fellow for almost three years. In 2009 she was awarded with a two-year Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship in the Nanocarbon Group of Prof. Andrei Khlobystov at the University of Nottingham. In 2011, she started her independent career as Royal Society Research Fellow and in 2015 she became Assistant Professor of Materials Chemistry in Nottingham. In 2018 she joined the CiQUS, launching her project ERC-STG NANOCOMP supported by the Oportunius Program (Xunta Galicia). She is currently coordinator of a strategic research group on Condensed Matter & Functional Materials (MAT2). The research in her group is currently focused on the development and functional characterisation of hybrid metal-carbon nanostructures for spintronics and energy-related applications.
In the last 10 years her studies have included a number of firsts, including (i) the first demonstrations of a molecular rhombus tiling (Nat. Chem. 2012), a supramolecular bilayer at a surface (Nat. Chem. 2011) and unusual nanoribbons inside carbon nanotubes (Nat. Mater. 2011); (ii) the encapsulation of single molecule magnets (Nat. Commun. 2011); (iii) the controlled assembly of preformed magnetic nanoparticles (Angew. Chem., 2013,) and exploitation of electrochemical nanoparticles (Adv. Mater. 2016, ChemSusChem 2021) in hollow carbon nanostructures. She has discovered a new type of supramolecular fluid (PCT/ES2021/070659, ES2797556 Angew.Chem. 2021) and established a new catalyst technology (PCT/ES2021/070649, ES2796448) offering a unique opportunity to address recyclability & sustainability for cost-effective electrochemical technologies. She has directed four doctoral thesis at the University of Nottingham and 12 MSc theses. She has participated in 15 research projects (11 as PI).
During these years she has been granted different fellowships and awards: Spanish Ministry of Education and Science Undergraduate Fellow, Extraordinary award for highest Degree in Chemistry, Regional Government Fellowship for Doctoral Studies, Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellowship, Royal Society DH Research Fellowship, ERC Starting Grant-NANOCOMP, Ramon y Cajal contract and a ERC PoC Grant-ZABCAT. In recognition of her multidisciplinary achievements, Maria was awarded in 2012 with a very prestigious prize (Emerging Investigator Award 2012) by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry for outstanding and novel research (covered in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2012, 51, 51). In 2016 and 2017 she became Emerging Talent SRUK/CERU Award finalist for the impact of her studies on the development of materials chemistry using carbon nanostructures.
Professor Emma Kendrick, CChem FIMMM FRSC FIMMM - Chair of Energy Materials, School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham.
Prof Kendrick’s career to date has included industrial and academic roles leading to her current role as Chair of Energy Materials, where in add addition to group lead of the energy materials group (EMG), she is co-director of the Centre for Energy Storage (BCES) and part of Birmingham Energy institute (BEI) and Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials (BCSECM). The EMG investigates sustainability in novel battery technologies from materials, manufacturing, performance and parameterisation, and recycling. Her recent work has led to a 2021 joint UoB - Imperial College London (ICL) spin out company, based around the methods of experimental parameterisation of applied multi-physics cell models, called About:Energy, for which she is founder and director.
Prior to UoB, she spent two years as Reader in WMG, University of Warwick. Before academia, she led innovations in the battery industry, latterly as Chief Technologist in Energy Storage at SHARP Laboratories of Europe Ltd (SLE) and prior to that for two innovative lithium-ion battery SMEs, Fife Batteries Ltd and Surion Energy Ltd.
She is fellow of the Royal Society of chemistry (RSC) and Institute of Metals, Mining and Materials (IoM3). Recently, she has been recognised through several awards; 2021 Faraday Institution (FI) Researcher Development Champion, RSC 2021 Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division Mid-Career Award, and the 2019 Hothersall Memorial Award for outstanding services to Metal Finishing.
Prof Kendrick holds a PhD from Keele University, obtained as part of a postgraduate transfer partnership (PTP) scheme with CERAM Research, a MSc in new materials from the University of Aberdeen and a BSc in chemistry from the University of Manchester.
Since 2017 Beatriz Roldan Cuenya has been a Director at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin (Germany). There she heads the Department of Interface Science. She moved from the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany), where she became a professor of Physics in 2013. Prior to that, Beatriz Roldan Cuenya was a professor of Physics at University of Central Florida (USA).
She carried out her postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara (2001-2003). Prof. Roldan obtained her PhD in Physics from the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) summa cum laude in 2001. She completed her M.S./B.S. in Physics with a minor in Materials Science at the University of Oviedo, Spain in 1998. During her academic career Prof. Roldan received an Early CAREER Award from the US National Science Foundation (2005) and the international Peter Mark Memorial award from the American Vacuum Society (2009). She is the author of more than 110 peer-reviewed publications and 3 book chapters and has given over 100 invited talks. She presently serves as Associate Editor of ACS Catalysis, in the editorial advisory board of the Surface Science journal and in the Advisory Committee of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the US Department of Energy.
Prof. Roldan’s research program explores the novel physical and chemical properties of size and shape-selected nanostructured materials, with emphasis on advancing the field of nanocatalysis through in situ and operando characterization of catalysts at work.
Peter Strasser is the chaired professor of �Electrochemistry for energy conversion and storage� at the Chemical Engineering Division of the Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin. Prior to his appointment, he was Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. Before moving to Houston, Prof. Strasser served as Senior Member of staff at Symyx Technologies, Inc., Santa Clara, USA. In 1999, Prof. Strasser earned his doctoral degree in Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry from the �Fritz-Haber-Institute� of the Max-Planck-Society, Berlin, Germany, under the direction of the 2007 Chemistry Nobel Laureate, Professor Gerhard Ertl. In the same year, he was awarded the �Otto-Hahn Research Medal� by the Max-Planck Society. In 1996, Dr. Strasser was visiting scientist with Sony Central Research, Yokohama, Japan. He studied chemistry at Stanford University, the University of Tuebingen, and the University of Pisa, Italy. Professor Strasser is interested in the fundamental Materials Science and Catalysis of electrified liquid solid interfaces, in particular for renewable energy conversion, energy storage, production of fuels and chemicals.
This symposium aims to bring together researchers in the fields of electrochemistry, materials science and solid-state physics working on the development of solid-state lithium batteries.
Contributions are expected addressing different perspectives comprising research on electrodes and solid electrolytes, strategies for interface optimization, innovative processing routes, theory and modelling, and novel in-situ/operando or other advanced electrochemical and structural characterization techniques.
The goal is to tackle insight on recent progress on electrochemistry of materials and interfaces for increasing cell performances, including new designs and novel solutions on materials processing.
- Design of new materials for solid electrodes and electrolytes
- Development of new processing routes
- Electrode/electrolyte interface stability
- Theory and modeling
- Development of advanced characterization techniques, including in-situ/operando
Ainara is a Tenured Scientist at the Intituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, CSIC and Visiting Reader in Energy Materials in the Department of Materials, Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the quantitative anlysis and optimisation of ion and electron dynamics in complex oxides, bulk surfaces and interfaces. She uses a combination of structural, chemical and electrochemical analysis including surface sensitive techniques and operando characterisation to develop the next generation of solid-state electrochemical devices such as metal anode all-solid-state batteries, low and intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells and electrolysers. She has been awarded with fellowships and grants as PI up to €3,3M and is involved in several UK , Spanish and European Commission projects. She has published over 80 (>3.2k citations h=29, i10=52) research papers in this field and holds 2 patents on their applications.
Pieremanuele Canepa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemistry from the University of Torino (Italy) and a PhD from the University of Kent (UK). Prior NUS, he was a Postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. Gerbrand Ceder. His research contributes to the rational design of materials for clean energy technologies, including electrode materials for batteries, and electrolytes for sustainable energy storage devices. In 2021, Pieremanuele was elected as fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Montse Casas-Cabanas is the scientific coordinator of the Electrochemical Energy Storage Area and group leader of the Advanced Electrode Materials group at CIC energiGUNE. Her research interests focus on the design of battery materials and the understanding of phenomena that occur in energy storage devices through a multidisciplinary approach, with a focus in crystal chemistry.
She is also author of >75 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and has been PI of several national and european projects. She has co-authored the FAULTS software for the refinement of X-ray data of crystalline structures with planar defects. She is also actively involved in the MESC+ Erasmus Mundus master course and has recently received the 2021 Young Researcher award ("Group Leader" category) from the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry.
Dr. Hatzell is an assistant professor at Princeton university in the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment and department of Mechanical and aerospace engineering. Hatzell’s group primarily work on energy storage and is particularly interested at using non-equilibrium x-ray techniques to probe batteries during operando experimentation.
Dr. Hatzell earned her Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering at Drexel University, her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.S./B.A. in Engineering/Economics from Swarthmore College. Hatzell’s research group works on understanding phenomena at solid|liquid and solid|solid interfaces and works broadly i9n energy storage and conversion. Hatzell is the recipient of several awards including the ORAU Powe Junior Faculty Award (2017), NSF CAREER Award (2019), ECS Toyota Young Investigator Award (2019), finalist for the BASF/Volkswagen Science in Electrochemistry Award (2019), the Ralph “Buck” Robinson award from MRS (2019), Sloan Fellowship in Chemistry (2020), and POLiS Award of Excellence for Female Researchers (2021).
Dr. Yaroslav Romanyuk is a scientific group leader at the Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics since 2008. He received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne in 2005 and completed his postdoctoral education stay at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include novel materials for thin-film solar cells, oxide electronics, and lately all-solid-state batteries fabricated with vacuum and printing methods. He supervised 11 completed Ph.D. theses with two in progress. He holds several patents and has co-authored more than 150 research articles (h-factor = 40 as of April 2022).
Light is ubiquitous, and the ability to harvest, control, and generate it opens up a huge range of applications. Nanomaterials have shown particular strengths in this regard, driven by their attractive properties, tunability, and ease of synthesis. In this symposium, we highlight new innovations and understanding in nanomaterials.
We will highlight developments on the synthesis, fabrication, and physical understanding of these materials, as well as their deployment in opto-electronic and photo(electro)catalytic applications.
- Synthesis and physical understanding of nanomaterials
- Design and control of optoelectronic properties
- Deployment of nanomaterials for optoelectronic applications
- Design of nanomaterials for photo(electro)catalysis
- Understanding of opto-electronic and catalytic properties of photo- and photoelectrocatalysts
Ludmilla is an Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Univeristy of Oxford. She obtained her B.Sc and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Siegen (Germany). During her undergraduate studies she developed an interest in electrochemistry and semiconductor physics driving her to pursue a M.Sc. project on dye-sensitized solar cells in the group of Professor Michael Grätzel at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). Staying in the same group, Ludmilla worked on oxide thin film photoelectrodes applied in photoelectrochemical water splitting and perovskite solar cells during her Ph.D. degree which she obtained in 2016. She then joined the group of Professor James Durrant at Imperial College London to study photochemical and photophysical processes in semiconductors using time-resolved spectroscopy and shortly after was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (2017-2019). Ludmilla began her independent research career as Imperial College Research Fellow (2019-2021) before moving to Oxford in October 2021. Her research at Oxford aims at the design of atomically defined photo- and electrocatalysts that convert CO2, water and other “waste products” to energy-rich fuels and chemicals with high conversion efficiency, selectivity and long operational stability.
Maksym Kovalenko has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich since July 2011 and Associate professor from January 2017. His group is also partially hosted by EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology) to support his highly interdisciplinary research program. He completed graduate studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria, 2004-2007, with Prof. Wolfgang Heiss), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago (USA, 2008-2011, with Prof. Dmitri Talapin). His present scientific focus is on the development of new synthesis methods for inorganic nanomaterials, their surface chemistry engineering, and assembly into macroscopically large solids. His ultimate, practical goal is to provide novel inorganic materials for optoelectronics, rechargeable Li-ion batteries, post-Li-battery materials, and catalysis. He is the recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant 2018, ERC Starting Grant 2012, Ruzicka Preis 2013 and Werner Prize 2016. He is also a Highly Cited Researcher 2018 (by Clarivate Analytics).
Alexander S. Urban studied Physics at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany) obtaining an equivalent to an M.Sc. degree (German: Dipl. Phys.) at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany) in 2006. During his studies he spent a year at Heriot Watt University (UK), where he obtained an M.Phys. in Optoelectronics and Lasers in 2005. He then joined the Photonics and Optoelectronics Chair of Jochen Feldmann at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich (Germany) in 2007 where he worked on the optothermal manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles, earning his Ph.D. summa cum laude in 2010. He expanded his expertise in the fields of plasmonics and nanophotonics in the group of Naomi J. Halas at the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University (Houston, TX, USA), beginning in 2011. He returned to the LMU in 2014 to become a junior group leader with Jochen Feldmann, where he led the research thrusts on optical spectroscopy, focusing on hybrid nanomaterials such as halide perovskite nanocrystals and carbon dots. In 2017 he was awarded a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council and shortly after that in 2018 he received a call as a Full Professor of Physics (W2) at the LMU. Here, he now leads his own research group working on nanospectroscopy in novel hybrid nanomaterials.
Electron-driven chemistries represent a powerful route to increase the deployment of renewables, decarbonizing existing supply chains and enabling circular economies. The electrochemical transformation of chemicals into added-value products, often referred to as solar fuels, has seen rapid progress during the last years, with advances in field of water splitting, CO2 electroreduction, and ammonia electrosynthesis among others.
This symposium focuses on emerging approaches to improve the technoeconomic viability of these technologies at the system level through alternative and complementary reactions. Some of these examples include: integrated capture and conversion of CO2 and direct conversion of CO2-sequestering feedstocks; anodic valorization, such as selective water oxidation or hydrocarbon oxidation (e.g. glycerol, ethylene, methane); tandem integrated reactions; and the generation of high-purity concentrated products
- Anodic valorization
- Next-generation membranes for system integration
- Direct CO2 reduction from capture solutions
- High-purity product generation
- Integrated tandem reactions
Dr. Teresa Andreu is lecturer professor at the University of Barcelona since 2020. She received the degree in Chemistry (1999) and PhD in Materials Science (2004) from the University of Barcelona. After a period in industry and academia, she joined IREC in 2009 as senior researcher. Her research is focused on the development of materials and reactors for emerging technologies for hydrogen generation and carbon dioxide conversion (photoelectrochemistry, heterogeneous catalysis and plasma-catalysis), solar fuels and redox flow batteries. She has been part-time lecturer at the materials department at UB (2014-2017) and UPC (2017-2019) and she is the author of more than 100 scientific publications and 4 patents.
Prof. Aimy Bazylak is the Canada Research Chair in Thermofluids for Clean Energy and Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the U of T. In 2011, she was awarded the I.W. Smith Award from the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, and she received the Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2012. From 2015-2018, she served as the Director of the U of T Institute for Sustainable Energy. In 2015 she was named an Alexander Von Humboldt Fellow (Germany), and in 2019 she was named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2020, she was named a Helmholtz International Fellow (Germany), was awarded the U of T McLean Award, and was elected to the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.


I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Montreal, Department of Chemistry. My overarching motivation is to discover and implement the chemistry necessary to transition to a sustainable energy-based society. Specifically, I am developing materials to convert solar energy to chemical fuels as an energy storage media.
The stability of novel solar cells based on perovskite or organic semiconductors has been one of the major challenges in further development of thin film photovoltaics. Perovskite solar cells have achieved a world record efficiency of single-junction solar cells reaching 25.5% and the tandem devices reaching 29.8%. Organic solar cells have achieved more than 18% device efficiency. In view of the device stability, many great achievements have been made in the past couple of years.
The lifetime characterized as T80 has significantly extended to over 10,000 hours for encapsulated photovoltaic devices from both, organic and perovskite semiconductors. Novel understanding and strategies for enhancing the device stability have been reported in the recent literature. Thus, it is necessary and timely to hold a symposium on the stability of organic and perovskite solar cells to collect the most important progress and insights into these related fields.
For perovskite solar cells, topics include progress made in device stability by immobilizing ion migration, minimizing surface defects in charge selective contacts, by energetic level alignment modification, by stabilizing the phase structure of perovskite film, etc.
For organic solar cells, stability of the blend microstructure, the electronic processes in the solar cell, a potential advantage of single-component solar cells, and stability of large-scale processed solar cells are among the topics in this symposium.
- Immobilization of ion migration
- Surface trap stats passivation
- Energetic level alignment modification
- Stabilization of phase structure of perovskites
- Stability of the blend microstructure and related electronic changes
- Single-component solar cells
- Electronic processes in the solar cell upon degradation
He received his PhD (1995) in physical chemistry from Linz university, joined the group of Prof Alan Heeger at UCSB for a sabbatical, and continued to work on all aspects of organic semiconductor spectroscopy as assistant professor at Linz university with Prof. Serdar Sariciftci. He joined the SIEMENS research labs as project leader for organic semiconductor devices in 2001 and joined Konarka in 2004, where he was holding the position of the CTO before joining university.
He is author and co-author of more than 150 papers and 200 patents and patent applications, and finished his habilitation in physical chemistry in 2003.
Eva Herzig’s research interest focuses on the possibilities and limitations in the characterization of nanostructures in functional materials as well as how such nanostructures form and change as functions of external parameters. The examined materials range from organic molecules to nanostructured hybrid and inorganic systems. We examine processing-property relationships and the influence of external fields to investigate how the fundamental self-assembly processes influence the final material performance. To this end we exploit various scattering techniques to observe and control structure and function relationships in the examined materials in-situ. Using grazing incidence x-ray scattering we are particularly sensitive to nanostructures on flat surfaces and within thin films.
Leite is an Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Davis. Her group investigates materials for energy harvesting and storage, from their nano-scale structural, electrical, and optical properties to their implementation in devices. Before joining UC Davis, Leite was an associate professor at the University of Maryland, she worked for two years at NIST and was a post-doctoral scholar at Caltech (Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science). She received her PhD in physics from Campinas State University in Brazil and the Synchrotron Light Source Laboratory. Leite's work has been recognized on the cover of ~30 scientific journals, by the presentation of >140 invited talks, by the 2016 APS Ovshinsky Sustainable Energy Fellowship from the American Physical Society (APS) and the 2014 Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist Award. Leite’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), etc.
Iván Mora-Seró (1974, M. Sc. Physics 1997, Ph. D. Physics 2004) is researcher at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló (Spain). His research during the Ph.D. at Universitat de València (Spain) was centered in the crystal growth of semiconductors II-VI with narrow gap. On February 2002 he joined the University Jaume I. From this date until nowadays his research work has been developed in: electronic transport in nanostructured devices, photovoltaics, photocatalysis, making both experimental and theoretical work. Currently he is associate professor at University Jaume I and he is Principal Researcher (Research Division F4) of the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM). Recent research activity was focused on new concepts for photovoltaic conversion and light emission based on nanoscaled devices and semiconductor materials following two mean lines: quantum dot solar cells with especial attention to sensitized devices and lead halide perovskite solar cells and LEDs, been this last line probably the current hottest topic in the development of new solar cells.
Jenny Nelson is a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, where she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of plastic solar cells. She has published around 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells.
Sam Stranks is a University Lecturer in Energy and Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology and the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He obtained his DPhil (PhD) from the University of Oxford in 2012. From 2012-2014, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College Oxford and from 2014-2016 a Marie Curie Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He established his research group in 2017, with a focus on the optical and electronic properties of emerging semiconductors for low-cost electronics applications.
Sam received the 2016 IUPAP Young Scientist in Semiconductor Physics Prize, the 2017 Early Career Prize from the European Physical Society, the 2018 Henry Moseley Award and Medal from the Institute of Physics, and the 2019 Marlow Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2016 he was named a TED Fellow, and in 2017 he was listed by the MIT Technology Review as one of the 35 under 35 innovators in Europe. Sam is also a co-founder of Swift Solar, a startup developing lightweight perovskite PV panels, and an Associate Editor at Science Advances.


The potential toxicity of lead is a concern that complicates commercialization of lead-halide perovskites. The photovoltaic performance of lead-free perovskites on the other hand is lagging with respect to the lead-based ones. However, tin-based perovskites have seen substantial improvements in the last years. In addition, perovskite-like materials (e.g. Cs Ag Bi X , Cs Au Au X , Cs Ag Sb Br etc.) are gaining increasing attention because they provide the opportunity to design novel materials with unexplored properties. Therefore, this class of materials is particularly intriguing for applications beyond PV, such as thermoelectric devices, LEDs but also as a platform for photochemical reactions. Despite their potential, a lot is still not known about this class of materials and the large parameter space in the achievable compositions further extend the complexity of their understanding.
This symposium aims at bringing together international experimentalists and theoreticians who are involved in the investigation of lead-free perovskites from their fundamentals to applications.
The symposium invites contributions on new synthesis and growth methods, characterizations of the structural and optoelectronic properties, and theoretical insights. In addition, the symposium aims to discuss the latest advances in leadfree perovskite-based devices which include thermoelectrics devices, photodetectors, LEDs, platform for photochemical processes and solar cells, among others.
- Fabrication and synthesis methods
- Photophysics and carrier dynamics
- Degradation and stability studies
- Structural characterization
- Ultrafast phenomena (hot carriers, polaronic distortions, etc.
- Correlating structural and optoelectronic properties
- Theory and simulations of the photophysical properties
- Applications: photocatalysis, photodetectors, LEDs, solar cells, thermoelectric devices etc
Loreta Angela Muscarella was born in Palermo, Italy. In 2012, she moved to Rome where she started a bachelor in chemistry at Sapienza - University of Rome. During her Master’s studies, she spent seven months at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) under the supervision of Dr. René Williams to write her thesis on the effect of metallic ions in mixed-halide perovskites to improve the stability and optoelectronic properties. She received her MSc degree in inorganic and physical chemistry cum laude (with honors). In 2018, Loreta joined the group of Prof. Dr. Bruno Ehrler at AMOLF as a PhD student. Here, she investigated the structure-optoelectronic properties relation in 3D and layered 2D lead-halide perovskites by monitoring the optoelectronic properties of mechanically compressed perovskites. In 2022, she joined the group of Dr. Eline Hutter (Utrecht University) to study photochemistry processes using lead-free perovskites.
Hendrik (Henk) Bolink obtained his PhD in Materials Science at the University of Groningen in 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Hadziioannou. After that he worked at DSM as a materials scientist and project manager in the central research and new business development department, respectively. In 2001 he joined Philips, to lead the materials development activity of Philips´s PolyLED project.
Since 2003 he is at the Instituto de Ciencia Molecular (ICMol )of the University of Valencia where he initiated a research line on molecular opto-eletronic devices. His current research interests encompass: inorganic/organic hybrid materials such as transition metal complexes and perovskites and their integration in LEDs and solar cells.
He received his PhD (1995) in physical chemistry from Linz university, joined the group of Prof Alan Heeger at UCSB for a sabbatical, and continued to work on all aspects of organic semiconductor spectroscopy as assistant professor at Linz university with Prof. Serdar Sariciftci. He joined the SIEMENS research labs as project leader for organic semiconductor devices in 2001 and joined Konarka in 2004, where he was holding the position of the CTO before joining university.
He is author and co-author of more than 150 papers and 200 patents and patent applications, and finished his habilitation in physical chemistry in 2003.
Filippo De Angelis is senior research scientist and a deputy director at the CNR Institute of Molecular Sciences and Technology, in Perugia, Italy. He is the founder and leader of the Computational Laboratory for Hybrid/Organic Photovoltaics. He earned a BS in Chemistry in 1996 and a PhD in Theoretical Inorganic Chemistry in 1999, both from the University of Perugia. He is an expert in the development and application of quantum mechanical methods to the study of hybrid/organic photovoltaics and materials for energy applications. He is Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. He has published >270 papers with > 17000 citations.
Laura Herz is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 2002 and was a Research Fellow at St John's College Cambridge from 2001 - 2003 after which she moved to Oxford. Her research interests lie in the area of organic and organic/inorganic hybrid semiconductors including aspects such as self-assembly, nano-scale effects, energy-transfer and light-harvesting for solar energy conversion.
Lorenzo obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2003 and since 2008 is Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Pavia. In 2021 he was appointed Full Professor in the same department. He was the recipient of the Young Scientist Award for outstanding work in the field of perovskites at the International Conference on Perovskites held in late 2005 in Zürich, of the “Alfredo di Braccio” Prize for Chemistry 2008 of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded to distinguished under 35-year-old chemists and contributed the Journal Materials Chemistry and Chemical Communications“Emerging Investigator” issues in 2010 and 2011. He is working in several areas of solid state chemistry with particular interest in the investigation of structure–properties correlation in different kinds of functional materials, in particular electrolyte materials for clean energy, hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites and catalysis materials. He is author of more than 200 papers on international peer-reviewed journals. Since 2018 he is member of Academic Senate and Vice-Director of the Chemistry Department. He is Director of the INSTM Reference Center “PREMIO” devoted to the synthesis of innovative materials and member of the Directive Board of INSTM. Since 2014 he is member of the Academic Board of the PhD in Chemistry of Pavia University. He is Editor of Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids.
Iván Mora-Seró (1974, M. Sc. Physics 1997, Ph. D. Physics 2004) is researcher at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló (Spain). His research during the Ph.D. at Universitat de València (Spain) was centered in the crystal growth of semiconductors II-VI with narrow gap. On February 2002 he joined the University Jaume I. From this date until nowadays his research work has been developed in: electronic transport in nanostructured devices, photovoltaics, photocatalysis, making both experimental and theoretical work. Currently he is associate professor at University Jaume I and he is Principal Researcher (Research Division F4) of the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM). Recent research activity was focused on new concepts for photovoltaic conversion and light emission based on nanoscaled devices and semiconductor materials following two mean lines: quantum dot solar cells with especial attention to sensitized devices and lead halide perovskite solar cells and LEDs, been this last line probably the current hottest topic in the development of new solar cells.
1) Predoctoral (2011-2014)
After completing 3-month and 5-month research internships at Tohoku University (Japan) and Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), I did my PhD in France at the University of Lyon (2014). My work focused on “Surface functionalization of heterogeneous gold / silica substrates for the selective anchoring of biomolecules and colloids onto LSPR biosensors”. The chemical functionalization approaches that I developed resulted in 5 first-author articles and 1 book chapter. In particular, the optimized biochemical functionalization of gold surfaces to robustly anchor different molecules (see publication 10, section C.1) is still cited today. This work provides a tool to detect specific biomolecules, such as tumoral markers for an early cancer diagnosis. During that time I was also secretary of Ecole Centrale de Lyon’s PhD association (ECLAT), where we conducted dissemination activities and organized visits to relevant scientific and industrial sites such as CERN and St Alban nuclear power plant. I also co-supervised one Master’s thesis student (Cindy Montenegro Benavides), whose work contributed to the aforementioned publication, and was in charge of 201 hours of teaching in general chemistry and chemical engineering.
2) Junior postdoc (2015-2018)
From 2015 until the end of 2017 I was hired as a post-doctoral researcher at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia to work on the ERC project Trans-Nano. During that time, I made significant contributions to the emerging field of halide perovskite quantum dots which is in process of becoming a major technology for high-efficiency (low energy consumption) displays. I published over 20 papers, most as first author in leading journals, many of which have gathered over 100 citations already (see publications 9-6, section C.1). I also participated in several international conferences (section C.2) and taught a course for PhD students on surface characterization methods (XPS and ToF-SIMS).
3) Senior postdoc and independent researcher (2018-present)
In 2018 I joined the Instituto de Ciencia Molecular in Valencia, first through a Marie-Curie Fellowship and then with a Juan de la Cierva – Incorporación contract. Aside from maintaining a high-level of publications in the field of perovskite photovoltaics to meet the global demand on renewable energies (publications 5-1, section C.1), during these last years I have consolidated my position as independent researcher, as proven by: (i) my appointment as co-leader for one of the 6 strategic research axes of ICMol as a Maria de Maeztu excellence unit, (ii) the supervision of PhD candidates (Yousra El Ajjouri, defended with honors in September 2020; Paz Sebastia-Luna, ongoing), (iii) several publications as corresponding author, (iv) establishment of several national and international collaborations (e.g. Monica Morales in University of Twente, the Netherlands and Liberato Manna from my former group in Italy), and (iv) the obtention of a Ramon y Cajal grant.
Furthermore, I have kept a teaching activity in chemical engineering (102 hours) and obtained the “Profesor Contratado Doctor” accreditation from ANECA. Eventually I have been very active in outreach activities to society, participating in several “MSCA information days” organized by the Network of Valencian Universities (RUVID) and collaborating with the spanish federation of young researchers (FJI), as well as being involved in technology transfer with leading industries in emerging photovoltaics (patent filing ongoing as a result of a collaboration work with Oxford PV, a spin-off company that is leading the market of perovskite photovoltaics).
With this solid background, I will start my Ramón y Cajal contract in 2022 at the Technical University of Cartagena (UPCT) where I plan to build my own independent research group with the help of this project among other funds.
Throughout this highly international career I have made significant contributions in the fields of materials’ chemistry, colloidal inorganic nanocrystals, surface analysis and halide perovskites’ optoelectronic devices among others.
I have co-authored 31 articles in international peer-reviewed journals and 1 book chapter. Most of my publications are in the most significant and highest impact factor journals of my field of research such as Nature Energy, Nature Communications and Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). My work has been highlighted on the cover of JACS and Chemistry of Materials. My publications cumulate a rapidly increasing number of citations (> 500 in total, out of which > 250 in 2018; source: Google Scholar). Furthermore, it is worth noting that most of these publications are without the contribution of my PhD supervisors and that I am first author and/or corresponding author in more than half of them.
Aside from research I have also maintained a teaching activity throughout my career with over 200 hours of lectures and practical courses in chemistry at undergraduate level (Ecole Centrale de Lyon; 2011-2014) as well as specific courses in surface analysis techniques for PhD students (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia; 2015-2017). Eventually, I have supervised a Master of Science thesis and I currently supervise a PhD thesis.
The new generation of semiconductor materials such as perovskites and organics are seen as promising candidates to open up new applications for low cost and low embodied energy, spectrally tuned light harvesting. This potential is now underpinned by impressive laboratory-scale efficiencies (for example 18% for organic solar cells and > 25% for organohalide perovskites) achieved by sophisticated molecular engineering and a deep understanding of charge generation and voltage loss mechanisms. The time has now come to drive these technologies into market adoption and certain ‘application targets’ such as indoor light-harvesting for IoT seem ideal platforms to enable this adoption.
This symposium endeavours to gather leading experts from around the world aiming to identify and describe application targets for next-generation photovoltaic devices. In this regard, the symposium will particularly focus on areas such as state-of-the-art materials for photoactive layers and ancillary components, new material processing and device fabrication techniques, device characterization and simulation, differences in device physics between standard solar illumination, and more bespoke conditions such as indoor lighting, and cost evaluation of technologically relevant ‘whole systems’.
- Ultra-light-weight, high power density PV for communications/aerospace-related technologies
- Scaling of organic and perovskite solar cells for large-area devices
- Semi-transparent solar cells and building integration of PV technologies
- Indoor PV for Internet of Things (IoT)
- PV-battery integration and system architectures
- Printable solar cells and environmentally friendly manufacturing
- PV cost and life cycle analysis
Professor Meredith is the Sêr Cymru Research Chair in Sustainable Advanced Materials at Swansea University Department of Physics in the United Kingdom where he also leads the newly established Centre for Integrative Semiconductor Materials. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, and formerly an Australian Research Council Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award Fellow. He was educated in the UK at Swansea, Heriot-Watt and Cambridge Universities, and also spent six years as a senior scientist at Proctor and Gamble. His current research involves the development of new high-tech materials for applications such as optoelectronics and bioelectronics. He has particular interests and expertise in next generation semiconductors, functional surface coatings, solar energy systems, sensing and photodetection. Professor Meredith has published >250 papers and 29 patents and is co-founder of several start-up companies including XeroCoat and Brisbane Materials Technology. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Premier of Queensland’s Sustainability Award (2013), is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and is widely recognised for his contributions to innovation and the promotion of renewable energy. He has served on several advisory bodies and boards including the Queensland Renewable Energy Target Public Enquiry Expert Panel and the ARENA Solar R&D Program Technical Advisory Board. In 2020 he received an OBE for services to materials research and innovation and was also appointed to the EPSRC’s Strategic Advisory Network in 2021.
He received his PhD (1995) in physical chemistry from Linz university, joined the group of Prof Alan Heeger at UCSB for a sabbatical, and continued to work on all aspects of organic semiconductor spectroscopy as assistant professor at Linz university with Prof. Serdar Sariciftci. He joined the SIEMENS research labs as project leader for organic semiconductor devices in 2001 and joined Konarka in 2004, where he was holding the position of the CTO before joining university.
He is author and co-author of more than 150 papers and 200 patents and patent applications, and finished his habilitation in physical chemistry in 2003.
René Janssen is university professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He received his Ph.D. in 1987 from the TU/e for a thesis on electron spin resonance and quantum chemical calculations of organic radicals in single crystals. He was lecturer at the TU/e since 1984, and a senior lecturer in physical organic chemistry since 1991. In 1993 and 1994 he joined the group of Professor Alan J. Heeger (Nobel laureate in 2000) at the University of California Santa Barbara as associate researcher to work on the photophysical properties of conjugated polymers. Presently the research of his group focuses on functional conjugated molecules and macromolecules as well as hybrid semiconductor materials that may find application in advanced technological applications. The synthesis of new materials is combined with time-resolved optical spectroscopy, electrochemistry, morphological characterization and the preparation of prototype devices to accomplish these goals. René Janssen has co-authored more than 600 scientific papers. He is co-recipient of the René Descartes Prize from the European Commission for outstanding collaborative research, and received the Research Prize of The Royal Institute of Engineers and in The Netherlands for his work. In 2015 René Janssen was awarded with the Spinoza Prize of The Dutch Research Council.
Jenny Nelson is a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, where she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of plastic solar cells. She has published around 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells.
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“Organics strike back”: After a long halt between 2012 and 2015 on efficiencies around 12%, organic solar cells (OSC) have now transitioned to a stage where efficiencies over 18% are being regularly reported. The emergence of a family of materials - the non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) with small energetic offsets with specific electron donors - is mainly responsible for the remarkable improvement. With the significant milestone of 20% now in sight and an optimistic value of 25% predicted, understanding interlayer, morphology, charge dynamics and the current barriers in these systems is now of great importance.
This symposium endeavours to gather leading experts from around the world aiming at critical discussions on hot topics related organic solar cells, in particular those based on NFAs.
- Progress in efficiency
- Voltage loss mechanisms in NFA solar cells
- New thermodynamic efficiency limits
- Interplay between excitons, CT states and free charges in the low offset systems.
- Charge generation in non-fullerene solar cells
- Charge transport and recombination
- Interplay between nano-morphology and charge dynamics
- Doping engineering in OSCs
- Role of energetic disorder and tail states
- Green solvent processed OSCs
Thomas D. Anthopoulos is a Professor of Material Science and Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, where he has been since January 2017. He received his B.Eng. and D.Phil. degrees from Staffordshire University in UK. He then spent two years at the University of St. Andrews (UK) where he worked on new materials for application in organic light-emitting diodes before join Philips Research Laboratories in The Netherlands to focus on organic transistors and printed microelectronics. From 2006 to 2017 he held faculty positions at Imperial College London (UK), first as an EPSRC Advanced Fellow and later as a Reader and Professor of Experimental Physics. His research interests are diverse and cover the development and application of novel processing paradigms and the physics, chemistry & application of functional materials.
Mariano Campoy Quiles´s research is devoted to the understanding and development of solution processed semiconductors for energy and optoelectronic applications. He and his team have built substantial research efforts in two application areas, solar photovoltaic (light to electric) and thermoelectric (heat to electric) energy conversion based on organic and hybrid materials. He studied physics at the Univesity of Santiago de Compostela, obtained his PhD in experimental physics from Imperial College London, and since 2008 he leads his team at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona.
Eva Herzig’s research interest focuses on the possibilities and limitations in the characterization of nanostructures in functional materials as well as how such nanostructures form and change as functions of external parameters. The examined materials range from organic molecules to nanostructured hybrid and inorganic systems. We examine processing-property relationships and the influence of external fields to investigate how the fundamental self-assembly processes influence the final material performance. To this end we exploit various scattering techniques to observe and control structure and function relationships in the examined materials in-situ. Using grazing incidence x-ray scattering we are particularly sensitive to nanostructures on flat surfaces and within thin films.


Iain McCulloch holds positions as Professor of Chemical Science within the Division of Physical Sciences and Engineering of KAUST, and a Chair in Polymer Materials within the Chemistry Department at Imperial College. He is also a co-founder and director of Flexink Limited. He is co-inventor on over 60 patents and co-author on over 300 papers with a current h-index of 68. His papers have been cited over 19000 times, including two papers with over 1000 citations. He was cited in Thompson Reuters “Global Top 100 Materials Scientists, 2000-10, Ranked by Citation Impact” at number 35 globally and number 2 in the UK, and was listed on ISI Highly Cited Researchers List 2014, based on ESI Highly Cited Papers 2002-2012. He was awarded the 2009 Royal Society of Chemistry, Creativity in Industry Prize, the 2014 Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize for Advances in Chemistry and a 2014 Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award.
Thuc-Quyen Nguyen is a professor in the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids and the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She received her Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2001 under the supervision of Professor Benjamin Schwartz. Her thesis focused on photophysics of conducting polymers. She was a research associate in the Department of Chemistry and the Nanocenter at Columbia University working with Professors Louis Brus and Colin Nuckolls on molecular self-assembly, nanoscale characterization and molecular electronics. She also spent time at IBM Research Center at T. J. Watson (Yorktown Heights, NY) working with Richard Martel and Phaedon Avouris. Her current research interests are structure-function-property relationships in organic semiconductors, electronic properties of conjugated polyelectrolytes, interfaces in optoelectronic devices, charge transport in organic semiconductors and biological systems, and device physics. Recognition for her research includes the 2005 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, the 2006 NSF CAREER Award, the 2007 Harold Plous Award, the 2008 Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, the 2009 Alfred Sloan Research Fellows, the 2010 National Science Foundation American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellows, the 2015 Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Award, the 2016 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the 2015, 2016, and 2017 World’s Most InfluentialScientific Minds; Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers in Materials Science by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics. Her current research interests are electronic properties of conjugated polyelectrolytes, doping in organic semiconductors, charge transport in organic semiconductors and biofilms, bioelectronics, and device physics of organic solar cells, ratchets, transistors, and photodetectors.
Ergang Wang was appointed as a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers in 2019. He has been an Associated Professor in 2016-2019 and Assistant Professor in 2012-2016. Previously, he has been a postdoc fellow in the same department in 2008-2011. He obtained his PhD degree in Materials Science in 2008 and Docentship in 2015.
The focus of his research is on the development of new conjugated polymers, 2D materials and Graphene-like materials. The main applications of the materials are organic solar cells, photodetectors, light-emitting diodes, light-emitting electrochemical cells, electrochromics, field effect transistors and supercapacitors.
Computational Neuroscience provides a great inspiration for building efficient sensing, processing and learning artificial systems based on computing and processing with spikes. In this symposium we will review present state-of-the-art on so called “neuromorphic” systems, which are artificial systems which sense, compute and learn based on events. In neural biology, information is encoded in spikes or sequences of spikes, providing highly efficient means of encoding relevant information and resulting in fast and energy efficient sensory processing and learning systems. In the world of engineering, understanding the underlying computing principles is crystalizing already in a number of interesting applications, although there is still a long path to understanding the mysteries of the brain. We will present state-of-the-art sensory neuromorphic systems, review the state of artificial neuromorphic learning, and illustrate computations in the neuromorphic domain.
- Neuromorphic Sensing
- Neuromorphic Learning
- Neuromorphic Computation
Bernabé Linares-Barranco received the B. S. degree in electronic physics in June 1986 and the M. S. degree in microelectronics in September 1987, both from the University of Seville , Sevilla , Spain . From September 1988 until August 1991 he was a Graduate Student at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering of Texas A&M University. He received a first Ph.D. degree in high-frequency OTA-C oscillator design in June 1990 from the University of Seville, Spain, and a second Ph.D deegree in analog neural network design in December 1991 from Texas A&M University , College-Station, USA.
Since June 1991, he has been a Tenured Scientist at the "Instituto de Microelectrónica deSevilla" , (IMSE-CNM-CSIC) Sevilla , Spain , which since 2015 is a Mixed Center between the University of Sevilla and the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). From September 1996 to August 1997, he was on sabbatical stay at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Johns Hopkins University . During Spring 2002 he was Visiting Associate Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of Texas A&M University , College-Station, USA. In January 2003 he was promoted to Tenured Researcher, and in January 2004 to Full Professor. Since February 2018, he is the Director of the "Insitituto de Microelectrónica de Sevilla".
He has been involved with circuit design for telecommunication circuits, VLSI emulators of biological neurons, VLSI neural based pattern recognition systems, hearing aids, precision circuit design for instrumentation equipment, VLSI transistor mismatch parameters characterization, and over the past 20 years has been deeply involved with neuromorphic spiking circuits and systems, with strong emphasis on vision and exploiting nanoscale memristive devices for learning. He is co-founder of two start-ups, Prophesee SA (www.prophesee.ai) and GrAI-Matter-Labs SAS (www.graimatterlabs.ai), both on neuromorphic hardware.
Dr. Linares-Barranco was corecipient of the 1997 IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems Best Paper Award for the paper "A Real-Time Clustering Microchip Neural Engine", and of the 2000 IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Darlington Award for the paper "A General Translinear Principle for Subthreshold MOS Transistors". He organized the 1995 Nips Post-Conference Workshop "Neural Hardware Engineering ". From July 1997 until June 1999 he has been Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Part II , and from January 1998 until December 2009 he was also Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks . Since April 2010 he is Associate Editor for the new journal "Frontiers in Neuromorphic Engineering", as part of the open access "Frontiers in Neuroscience" journal series (http://www.frontiersin.org/). Since Jan. 2021 he is Specialty Chief Editor of "Frontiers in Neuromorphic Engineering".
He is co-author of the book "Adaptive Resonance Theory Microchips ". He was Chief Guest Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks Special Issue on 'Hardware Neural Networks Implementations '. He is an IEEE Fellow since January 2010. He is listed among the Stanford top 2% most world-wide cited scientist in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (top 0.62% world-wide, 8th in Spain, 2nd in Andalucía, 1st in CSIC).
Amirreza received his BSC. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Tehran Polytechnic (2010) and Sharif University of Technology (2013), Tehran, Iran. In 2014, he was awarded an F.P.I scholarship from Spanish Research Council (CSIC). He received his Ph.D. in the field of neuromorphic engineering at the Instituto de Microelectronica de Sevilla (IMSE-CNM-CSIC), University of Seville, Seville, Spain in 2018. He has been visiting scholar/Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Manchester (UK), Brain and Mind Institute (CerCo, CNRS, Toulouse), National University of Singapore, imec (Ghent), BrainChip (Toulouse) and GrAI-Matter-Labs (Eindhoven). Since 2020, he is a neuromorphic architect researcher in IMEC (Eindhoven, Netherlands) with a focus on designing low-power neuromorphic processor architecture.

The increasing energy world crisis due to fossil fuels shortage and the overwhelming environmental climate emergency, claim for the development of novel materials with distinctive properties as an effective method to design a brighter future. Since 2004, with the first exfoliation of graphene from graphite, two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials have become some of the most relevant nanomaterials in energy and environmental fields. 2D nanomaterials exhibit unique properties such as quantum-size effect, excellent optical transparency, electrical and thermal conductivities, leading to unprecedented performances. In this way, in the present Symposium, we will focus on the recent development of novel 2D nanomaterials toward energy and environmental applications.
The present Symposium will cover, but not restricted to: 2D nanomaterials for electrocatalysis, photocatalysis, solar cells, supercapacitors and batteries, as main applications for energy harvesting and storage, but also for environmental applications such CO2 reduction, and processing of high value products (such as alcohols production, methanation, water oxidation, production of ammonia, among others). The list of interesting 2D materials is limitless, covering graphene-like 2D nanomaterials, including transition metal dichalcogenides, hexagonal boron nitride, graphitic carbon nitride, layered metal oxides, and layered double hydroxides, in addition to other novel materials based on MXenes, metal−organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks, polymers, black phosphorus, inorganic perovskites, and organic−inorganic hybrids.
We will cover the latest innovations on 2D nanomaterials applied in the energy and environmental fields, including novel scientific insights into the synthesis strategies, related theoretical calculations, and experimental investigations, to further understand the 2D structure-property and lead to the performance and efficiency improvement of these systems.
- 2D nanomaterials for electrocatalysis
- Applications for energy harvesting and storage
Prof. Mónica Lira-Cantú is Group Leader of the Nanostructured Materials for Photovoltaic Energy Group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (www.icn.cat located in Barcelona (Spain). She obtained a Bachelor in Chemistry at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, ITESM Mexico (1992), obtained a Master and PhD in Materials Science at the Materials Science Institute of Barcelona (ICMAB) & Autonoma University of Barcelona (1995/1997) and completed a postdoctoral work under a contract with the company Schneider Electric/ICMAB (1998). From 1999 to 2001 she worked as Senior Staff Chemist at ExxonMobil Research & Engineering (formerly Mobil Technology Co) in New Jersey (USA) initiating a laboratory on energy related applications (fuel cells and membranes). She moved back to ICMAB in Barcelona, Spain in 2002. She received different awards/fellowships as a visiting scientist to the following laboratories: University of Oslo, Norway (2003), Riso National Laboratory, Denmark (2004/2005) and the Center for Advanced Science and Innovation, Japan (2006). In parallel to her duties as Group Leader at ICN2 (Spain), she is currently visiting scientist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, CH). Her research interests are the synthesis and application of nanostructured materials for Next-generation solar cells: Dye sensitized, hybrid, organic, all-oxide and perovskite solar cells. Monica Lira-Cantu has more than 85 published papers, 8 patents and 10 book chapters and 1 edited book (in preparation).
ICREA Prof. Jordi Arbiol was born in Molins de Rei (Catalonia) in 1975. Having graduated in physics from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) in 1997, he went on to obtain his PhD in transmission electron microscopy as applied to nanostructured materials from this same university in 2001, earning the “European Doctorate” label in recognition of the project’s European dimension, as well as the university’s extraordinary doctorate award. He then held the position of assistant professor at the UB, before becoming a group leader at the Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona in 2009, as well as the scientific supervisor of this institute’s electron microscopy facility. It was here that he began his personal and professional mission to improve Barcelona’s baseline electron microscopy infrastructure, an endeavour he has continued to pursue at the ICN2, which he joined in 2015 as the leader of the Advanced Electron Nanoscopy Group.
He was President of the Spanish Microscopy Society (SME) (2017-2021), Vice-president (2013-2017) and member of its Executive Board (2009-2021). In 2019 he became a Member of the Executive Board of the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy (IFSM) (2019-2027). He is member of the Research Committee at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) and scientific supervisor of Electron Microscopy at ICN2 and the ALBA Synchrotron EM Center.
Other recognitions include the FWO Commemorative Medal in 2021, the BIST Ignite Award in 2018, the 2014 EU40 Materials Prize (E-MRS), the 2014 EMS Outstanding Paper Award and being listed in the Top 40 under 40 Power List (2014) by The Analytical Scientist. He currently has more than 410 peer-reviewed publications, h-index 87 GoS (76 WoS), with more than 24,400 GoS (19,000 WoS) citations.
Aldo Di Carlo is Director of the Institute of Structure of Matter of the National Research Council and Full Professor of Optoelectronics and Nanoelectronics at the Department of Electronics Engineering of the University of ROme "Tor Vergata". His research focuses on the study and fabrication of electronic and optoelectronic devices, their analysis and their optimization. Di Carlo founded the Center for Hybrid and Organic Solar Cells (CHOSE) which nowadays involve more than40 researchers dealing with the development of III generation solar cells (DSC, OPV and Perovskite) and on scaling-up of these technologies for industrial applications. CHOSE has generated 6 spin-off companies and a public/private partnership. Di Carlo is author/coauthor of more than 500 scientific publications in international journals, 13 patents and has been involved in several EU projects (three as EU coordinator)


He has more than 15 years research experience in the academic sector working on nanoelectronics, spintronics and optoelectronics. He possesses extensive hands-on experience on emerging low-dimensionality electronic systems including nanowire transistors, GaAs single spin quantum-bits, as well emerging phenomena in functional oxide and superconductive/ferromagnetic interfaces towards beyond CMOS technologies. He has served at various academic research positions in high reputation European institutions including the Foundation of Research and Technology in Greece, the Institut Néel CNRS in France and the London centre for Nanotechnology – University College of London in United Kingdom. He obtained his PhD in Nanoelectronics from Grenoble Institute of Technology in France, in 2009. He is currently Researcher (Grade C) in the i-EMERGE Research Institute of the Hellenic Mediterranean University (HMU) and the Team Leader of Innovative Printed Electronics at the Nanomaterials for Emerging Devices research group. His current research interests include 2D materials engineering in various printed device concepts suc as high performing solar cells, functional sensors as well as neuromorhic computation architectures towards energy efficient, smart Internet of Intelligent Things and wearable systems.
The development of high-performance optoelectronic devices has been underpinned by innovative materials. The emergence of wearable, autonomous systems and next-generation communications require sophisticated optoelectronic devices that are high performance and low power. Next-generation materials such as organic semiconductors, perovskites or nanocrystals allow for greater tuning of material properties than is possible with conventional inorganic semiconductors and are well suited to meeting this challenge.
This symposium will focus on innovative materials and applications for sensing, photogeneration and photodetection.
- Materials for physical sensors (stress, strain, temperature, etc)
- Chemical sensors
- Wearable and ultraportable sensors
- Organic light emitting diodes
- Optical communications and LIDAR
- Lasers
- High-performance photodetectors and imaging sensors
- Phototransistors
Mariano Campoy Quiles´s research is devoted to the understanding and development of solution processed semiconductors for energy and optoelectronic applications. He and his team have built substantial research efforts in two application areas, solar photovoltaic (light to electric) and thermoelectric (heat to electric) energy conversion based on organic and hybrid materials. He studied physics at the Univesity of Santiago de Compostela, obtained his PhD in experimental physics from Imperial College London, and since 2008 he leads his team at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona.
Dr Matthew Griffith develops bio-functional electronic inks and crafts new tools to print functional devices with applications in biosensing, energy and interact with human body. He has created soft functional materials that can replace traditional hard electronics, solving longstanding biocompatibility problems that restrict adoption of electronic devices in healthcare.
His achievements include creating biocompatible inks for a printed artificial retina with the potential to restore colour vision, flexible X-ray detectors that are revolutionizing radiotherapy treatment for cancer, and a series of material and technological developments that enabled the first commercial installation of printed solar cells in Australia. His work is published in the top 5% of journals in materials science and has been commercialised through multiple industry partnerships. The bioprinting tools he developed enable a globally unique translation of innovation from the lab to industrial scale roll-to-roll manufacture, leading to their inclusion in the Australian National Fabrication Facility.
Matthew has been awarded $6M+ in prestigious grants and fellowships, half secured as lead researcher. He has authored 45 publications, cited in 160 journals by authors in 68 countries across 19 different subject areas. His outreach includes direct patient engagement, creating a podcast for Australia’s leading chemistry society, and frequent media interactions.
Oana Jurchescu is an Associate Professor of Physics at Wake Forest University (WFU). She received her PhD in 2006 from University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD, until 2009, when she joined the Physics Department at Wake Forest University as an Assistant professor. Her expertise is in charge transport in organic and organic/inorganic hybrid semiconductors, device physics and semiconductor processing. She published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, 4 invited book chapters, 3 patents and gave over 50 invited or plenary talks at conferences. She won the 2013 National Science Foundation CAREER award, the ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement award, the university award for excellence in research, the university innovation award, as well as the prize for excellence in teaching and the award for excellence in mentorship. She served in a variety of capacities, including program chair and co-chair, for over 30 international conferences and workshops such as MRS, APS, SPIE, etc.

