Page 64 - ILLS Annual Report 2018

CHEMISTRY AND CHRYSTALLOGRAPHY
Anne A. Y. Guilbert. French Department of Physics, Imperial College London, UK
‘I am studying the structure-property relationship of organic semiconductors, looking in particular at solar energy applications. Organic
semiconductors are soft in nature and thus exhibit
a range of dynamics on various timescales directly relevant to optoelectronic processes. I use various characterisation techniques, including neutron scattering. Synergistically, I also extensively use different numerical simulation approaches to better understand how the different dynamical components in organic semiconductors affect their structure-property relationship.’
Quasi-elastic neutron spectroscopy sheds light on conjugated microporous polymers as potential water- splitting photochemical catalysts
Time-of-flight spectrometer IN6
Most fuels used for transport, for generating electricity and as raw materials for industries are produced from fossil fuels. Technologies harnessing light represent an alternative
route to producing liquid and gaseous fuels. Nature offers the concept of making fuels by harnessing light. This is the photosynthesis process. Photosynthesis involves sunlight energy converting water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugars and/or other materials.
AUTHORS
A.A.Y. Guilbert (Imperial College London, UK)
R.S. Sprick, Y. Bai, C.M. Aitchison, Y. Yan, D.J. Woods and A.I. Cooper (University of Liverpool, UK)
M. Zbiri (ILL)
ARTICLE FROM
Chem. Mater. (2019)—doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b02833 REFERENCES
[1] Royal Society of Chemistry. Solar Fuels and Artificial Photosynthesis— Science and innovation to change our future energy options. January 2012. www.rsc.org/solar-fuels
[2] G. Crabtree, M. Dresselhaus and M. Buchanan, Phys. Today 57 (2004) 29
[3] R.S. Sprick, J.-X. Jiang, B. Bonillo, S. Ren, T. Ratvijitvech, P. Guiglion, M.A. Zwijnenburg, D.J. Adams and A.I. Cooper, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 137 (2015) 3265
[4] R.S. Sprick, Y. Bai, A.A.Y. Guilbert, M. Zbiri, C.M. Aitchison, L. Wilbraham, Y. Yan, D.J. Woods, M.A. Zwijnenburg and A.I. Cooper, Chem. Mater. 31 (2019) 305
[5] M. Sachs, R.S. Sprick, D. Pearce, S.A.J Hillman, A. Monti, A.A.Y. Guilbert, N.J. Brownbill, S. Dimitrov, X. Shi, F. Blanc, M.A. Zwijnenburg, J. Nelson, J.R. Durrant and A.I. Cooper, Nat. Commun. 9 (2018) 4968
Solar energy can be captured and stored directly in the chemical bonds of a ‘solar fuel’, to be used when needed. One of the challenges of solar and other intermittent renewable energy sources for generating electricity is precisely how to store the energy. Solar fuels address this challenge. The way that we can use energy from the sun to produce these fuels constitutes a pioneering advance and novel route to designing energy materials.
Among the chemical fuels, hydrogen is of primary interest currently. For instance, hydrogen is used: (i) in the industrial synthesis of ammonia and other chemicals [2]; (ii) to fuel cars and lorries; (iii) to generate electricity using a fuel
cell; etc. At the moment, most hydrogen is produced by methane steam reforming from fossil fuels such as natural gas [1]. However, hydrogen can be produced by splitting water using sunlight, with oxygen as the only side product. Producing hydrogen by water-splitting using solar energy has the potential to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
Figure 1
Solar hydrogen cycle [1].
ANNUAL REPORT 2018
Solar energy around the clock
By day ...
Sunlight is used to produce solar fuels such as hydrogen. Some of this hydrogen is used immediately for transport and electricity generation and the rest is stored.
By night ...
Without sunlight there is no energy source to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen stored during sunlight hours is used for transport and electricity generation at night or during cloudy periods.