Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2012
Volume 57, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, March 31–April 3 2012; Atlanta, Georgia
Session J12: Invited Session: Energy Services for the Developing World II |
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Sponsoring Units: FIP GERA Chair: Ellen Stechel, Sandia National Laboratories Room: Grand Hall East A/B |
Sunday, April 1, 2012 1:30PM - 2:06PM |
J12.00001: Hybrid chromophore/template nanostructures: a customizable platform material for emissions-free solar energy storage and conversion Invited Speaker: Alexie Kolpak By reversibly storing solar energy in the conformations of molecular photo-isomers, solar thermal fuels (STFs) provide a mechanism for emissions-free, renewable energy storage and conversion, all in a single system. Development of STFs as a large-scale clean energy technology, however, has been hampered by a number of technical challenges that beset many of the photo-isomers of interest. These challenges include low energy density, short storage lifetime, and low quantum yield of the photoisomerization reaction; a small overlap with the solar spectrum; and the irreversible degradation of the photo-active molecules upon repeated cycling. In this talk, I will discuss my work using first-principles computations to design new STFs that overcome these technical hurdles. I will present computational results on a range of novel STFs based on our recently proposed photo-isomer/template nanostructure concept [Kolpak and Grossman, Nano Letters 11, 3156 (2011)], illustrating that this approach enables enormous improvements with respect to the potential STFs studied in the past, leading to STFs with energy densities in the range of Li-ion batteries, storage lifetimes of up to a year, and increased quantum yield and absorption efficiency. I will also discuss preliminary experimental results on the synthesis and characterization of one of the predicted STFs based on azobenzene-derivitized carbon nanotubes. With a large range of the photo-isomer/template phase space yet to be explored, there are numerous exciting possibilites for further property enhancement and customization, suggesting that STFs could become a competitive renewable energy technology. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 1, 2012 2:06PM - 2:42PM |
J12.00002: ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN |
Sunday, April 1, 2012 2:42PM - 3:18PM |
J12.00003: Distributed wind power for developing nations Invited Speaker: Trudy Forsyth |
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