As part of the IRSEC17, we are hosting a workshop on Novel Materials for Emerging Energy Solutions. The workshop is basically a full day knowledge conference aimed at providing technical understanding of a wide range of novel materials for emerging energy conversion and at identifying recent surge in novel materials relevant across many fields that support emerging low carbon energy technologies.
The workshop is targeted to foster Moroccan community to engage on technology and unleash their innovation capability by providing an opportunity to learn and exchange knowledge and ideas among Moroccan and international researchers including highly qualified Moroccan expatriates from all over the world.
Topics
The cost predictions for PV systems have to take into account the laws of physics and market conditions. The penetration of PV into global energy market requires, efficient energy conversion, efficient manufacturing methods and efficient use of materials. The costs in $/Wp, or better talking about $/m2 for products and power availability (kWh/Wp/annum) are issues that obviously involve R&D on basic materials and the technical and environmental profile of each newly introduced technology. References
Actually PV-technology is the third most important renewable energy source in terms of globally installed capacity after hydro and wind power. In 2012, the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) reported the addition of 31.1 GW of new PV capacity, up from 30.4 GW in 2011, which brings the cummulative global solar PV installed capacity above 100 GW [1]. For reference purposes, one power plant reactor produces about 1.3 GW of electricity per year (1 GW = 1 billion watts). For photovoltaics, in the last 30 years the learning curve shows a cost reduction of 15 to 20% for each doubling of the cumulative sales figure. Does Moore’s law apply to photovoltaics? Gordon Moore’s visionary prediction [2], has provided the engine for innovation and continued exponential miniaturisation of semiconductor components and continually increasing power and resources while decreasing costs provided by techhnology.
This talk which was given during the Solemn Plenary Session 2014 of the academy of sciences Hassan II, Morocco under the Program Renewable energy sources and energy transition: facts, challenges and opportunities for Morocco [3] will cover the status of PV technology and the high technology deployment as a part of the solution to the growing energy challenge and an essential component of future global energy production. Thin Film technologies under development are proposed as a solution of the problem, but one has to explore and quantify the potential for innovation and technological developments in term of efficiency increase, reduction of absorber, material utilization during deposition process. We discuss a variety of emerging materials and technologies. A new concept of miniaturization of solar cells with only few tens of micrometer in size operating under concentrated sun light will be introduced. The three basic generations of solar cells, designated as first, second, and third, which differ according to their cost and efficiency will be discussed [4].
– Wafer-based, silicon PV: monocrystalline and multicrystalline technologies (called 1st generation) is the most mature PV technology.
– Inorganic thin film (ITF) (known as 2nd generation), wich is the main alternative to c-Si.
– Third generation solar cells which are mostly at the research stage and the devices are relatively far from commercialization.
Last but not least, a variety of low cost materials architectures wich are emerging such as organic-inorganic halide Perovskite materials CH3NH3PbI3, the cheapest material iron pyrite FeS2 with estimated material extraction cost of 0.000002 €/W [5]) will be considered as well.
[1] http://www.epia.org/home/
[2] Gordon E. Moore, Cramming more components onto integrated circuits
[3] http://docplayer.fr/15191212-Et-la-diffusion-du-savoir-scientifique-et-des-savoir-faire.html
Electronics, Volume 38, Number 8, April 19, 1965.
[4] Martin A. Green, Third Generation Photovoltaics: Ultra-high Conversion Efficiency at Low Cost. Prog. Photovolt: Res. Appl. 9 (2001)pp. 123-135.
[5] C. Wadia, A.P. Alivisatos, D.M. Kammen, Materials availability expands the opportunity for large-scale photovoltaics deployment. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2009), 43 (6), 2072–2077.
The main objective is to predict, explain, and even control properties across the full range of material structures. The simulation programs are used to understand the behaviors of electrons, atoms, molecules and materials to support the development of materials and devices.
Many essential materials properties can nowadays be generated and screened by their computed properties even before their fabrication; this allows exploring material candidates that are critical to various technologies such as photovoltaics, energy storage, sensing, biomaterials, electronics. Computational Ab initio method has proven its merit by allowing parameter free calculation of real materials at the atomic scale and by focusing on the understanding the design of new materials with superior properties and functionalities. The progress over the last 20 years was largely devoted to the success of density-functional theory (DFT), which can be applied to all condensed matter systems, ranging from metals, semiconductors and insulators to complicated nanostructures. These calculations are complemented at higher length and time scales by the molecular dynamics and the Monte Carlo simulations techniques.
The workshop Materials Modeling and Simulation will provide a forum for Researchers, Master and PhD students to design new materials and/or optimize emerging materials with consideration for their environmental impact and application for solar energy conversion and energy storage.
Master and PhD students will gain skill and backgrounds, which can directly guide for the right choice of materials and design of various products and structures and help meeting our future global energy needs in an environmentally responsible way which is one of the greatest challenges of the twenty first century.
The tutorial will cover the fundamentals and the practical use of state-of-the-art codes for the calculation of the electronic structure and optical properties of bulk solids, thin films, nanowires and nanoparticles, to foster an open dialog between experimentalists and theoreticians to identify the most promising research directions related to energy, storage and environments.
The inherent increasing demand in energy solutions and new technologies in various sectors such as transport and environment has prompted scientists to custom the materials design and properties for targeted application. Most of the newly developed materials are complex composites with more and more reduced size and dimensions. Special fabrication techniques have then emerged to make the processing possible and easily tunable. Among these techniques and the list is not exhaustive: Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD), MOCVD (Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition), Electron Beam & Thermal evaporators, Magnetron Sputtering, Electron beam and Photo lithography have attracted increasing interest due to their volatility and reproducibility. In parallel and to accommodate this progress made in nanomaterials, advanced characterization techniques such as High Resolution Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRSTEM), Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS), Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM), In situ experiments (TEM+AFM+SEM) and 3D imaging, appear as major tools to first evaluate the processing routes and parameters, then to correlate the fabricated materials to their targeted application. This duality, which consists of closing the loop between these two aspects fabrication and characterization in one hand and the material testing in the other hand is a must to achieve cutting edge research and breakthrough. Ultimately, this approach will allow better prediction of the material design for the desired application. In addition, as this approach lies in cross disciplines, it gives to scientists leverage to overcome the multidisciplinary aspect related to nanotechnology.
In the actual context of global warming there is an important need for innovation in technology solutions promoting low carbon emissions. This paves the way to new research area with cross-cutting applicability relevant to chemical-to-chemical reactions and chemical to-power processes. Engineering of efficient catalysts exhibiting high performance at lower operating temperatures, will help saving significant amounts of energy and reducing the carbon emissions.
Special attention is devoted to the development of non-noble metal catalysts material taking advantage of the available minerals such as clays with respect to their physicochemical and textural properties suitable for applications in catalysis. In recent years, clays attracted significant interest as support to transition metal oxides for efficient contaminants removal from drinking water. Clays served successfully as catalysts due to their chemical composition consisting mainly of aluminosilicates that might act as catalyst support as well as mixtures of several common compounds such as Fe2O3, MgO, K2O, usually considered as active phases and promoters contained in material available locally.
Recently, we demonstrated the interesting intrinsic catalytic performances of clays toward complete oxidation of air pollutants such as CO as well as saturated, unsaturated, oxygenated and aromatic hydrocarbons. Furthermore, we highlighted also an innovative aspect associated with the easy extrusion of clays based catalyst and related advantages over conventional packed bed reactors allowing not only reducing pressure drop but also preventing hot spots/cool zones within the reactor. This is beneficial with respect to heat transfer in case of energy sensitive reactions and could be of interest with respect to methane reforming with CO2, considered both as constituent of biogas and major greenhouse gases. This study has been carried out using an easily extruded honeycomb monolith catalyst based on appropriately modified and promoted local clays.
The primary results are promising and might be considered as starting point paving the way to valorization of low cost local resources in chemical processes with low carbon emissions.
In this workshop, we will tackle some of these processing routes for novel materials fabrication with special emphasis to the strength of different characterization techniques capable of explaining and interpreting the materials behaviors.
Both young and experienced scientists will be gathered in this privileged environment to be introduced to these different tools and their impact in scientific research. Attendees will have a chance to interact with renewed speakers to develop their know-how-why in Materials Science.
Catalysis plays a significant role in developing greener and sustainable processes for the chemical industry. Heterogeneous nanoparticle catalysts are widely used in industry; their high thermal stability makes them well suited for large-scale processes. In contrast, homogeneous catalysts despite their exquisite tunability and selectivities are prone to thermal decomposition limiting the scope of the reactions that they can catalyze. In this presentation we will highlight three different areas of recent work at Argonne National Laboratory in the interface between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. 1. We have developed molecularly inspired, well-defined single-site catalysts based on 3dtransition metals (e.g. Ta5+, V3+, Mn2+) functionalized on “soft” porous organic polymers and molecular organic frameworks that are active catalysts for the hydrogenation of olefins, hydroboration of ketones and aldehydes.
2. We have demonstrated that single-site metal catalysts on “hard” supports (i.e., SiO2) display higher activity and selectivity for C-H bond activation of light alkanes than traditional homogeneous and heterogeneous metal nanoparticle catalytic systems. These achievements include catalysts that i) are >98% selective for the dehydrogenation of propane to propene and hydrogen and are ii) very long-lived compared to metal nanoparticle catalysts due to the highly dispersed nature of the catalytic sites, which precludes the formation of coke.
3. We have expanded the role of capping ligands, commonly used to stabilize Pt and Co/Pt nanoparticles, to understand the influence they play as ligands for nanoparticles used as catalysts for alkyne hydrogenation. An explanation for the effect of surface ligands on their selectivity and activity is proposed. We discovered that the proper balance between the adsorption energies of alkenes at the surface of nanoparticles compared to that of capping ligands defines the selectivity of the nanocatalysts for alkenes in alkyne hydrogenation reactions.
Biographies of team members
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