Iron carbene complexes for solar energy applications
2016-05-18
Schematic illustration of Earth abundant iron carbene complexes for solar energy applications.
Expensive metals may be replaced in the production of solar cells.
Lisa A. Fredin and Petter Persson from the Division of Theoretical Chemistry have collaborated with colleagues from Chemical Physics (Villy Sundström) and CAS (Kenneth Wärnmark) to explain how new and highly promising iron carbene dyes developed for solar energy applications (Wärnmark and co-workers, Nature Chem 7, 883 (2015)) work on the molecular level.
Replacing rare and more expensive metals such as ruthenium by iron opens up new possibilities for the production of inexpensive and environmentally friendly molecular components for solar cells and related photochemical applications. The recent progress is described in a new explainer video from Lund University.
Link to press release with video
Research article
Molecular and Interfacial Calculations of Iron(II) Light Harvesters
Lisa A. Fredin, K. Wärnmark, V. Sundström, P. Persson
ChemSusChem, 9, 667 (2016), DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201600062