Title of Talk

Development of Organic and Metal Complex Dyes for Opto-Electronics and Clean Energy

 

Abstract

The search of renewable clean energy is of urgent need to meet with the increasing global energy demands. The depletion of fossil fuels and the undesirable side effects of burning fossil like pollution and climate changes drive the development of sustainable clean energy technology by harnessing solar energy into electricity or clean fuel.¹ Hydrogen is an attractive clean energy source that can be directly used for combustion and in fuel cells, or stored as a liquid fuel.²  Photoinduced water splitting utilizing water and sunlight is a promising approach to hydrogen production. Robust and efficient photovoltaic materials/devices are required, which are the key challenge for the technologies.

In this presentation, our work on the development of both water-oxidation catalysts and photosensitzers for photon-driven water splitting will be described. This will include material design, synthesis and characterisation. The roles played by these new materials in controlling their opto-physical and electrochemical properties will be illustrated. The key parameters for hydrogen evolution kinetics from water will be revealed and the stability of these new catalysts and photosensitisers will be discussed.

 

Acknowledgements: Australian Research Council, Queensland Government, COPE, The University of Queensland for support.

 

References:

1. Lenton, T. Nature 2011, 473, 7; Dresselhaus, M.S.; Thomas, I. L. Nature 2001, 414, 332.

2. Youngblood, W. J.; Lee, S.-H.; Maeda, A. K. Mallouk, T.E. Acc. Chem. Res. 2009, 42, 1966.

Shih-Chun Lo, Dr, Lecturer

 

Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics (COPE), School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, AUSTRALIA

e-mail: s.lo@uq.edu.au

 

Profile. Dr Lo held a prestigious Swire Scholarship while carrying out his DPhil study in organic materials development for solar cells and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) at the University of Oxford, UK (1996-2000). He then focused on the design, synthesis and characterization of new solution processable fluorescent and phosphorescent dendrimers (branched macromolecules) for OLEDs at Oxford. In 2007, he joined the University of Queensland as a Lecturer in Chemistry of Materials.

His research group has been focusing on new materials development for clean energy related applications (e.g. H2 generation via photon-induced water splitting, solar cells), organic opto-electronics (e.g. OLEDs, OPVs, OFETs, LE-FETs, photodetectors, sensors), as well as bio-applications (sensing and therapy).

 

Selected Publications

1. Reid, E. F.; Burn, P. L.; Lo, S.-C.; Hogan, C. F. Electrochimica Acta , 2013, 100, 72

2. Lai, W.-Y.; Balfour, M. N.; Levell, J. W.; Bansal, A.; Burn, P. L.; Lo, S.-C.; Samuel, I. D. W. Macromolecules, 2012, 45, 2963

3. Lo, S.-C.; Harding, R. E.; Shipley, C. P. S.; Stevenson, G.; Burn, P. L.; Samuel, I. D. W. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131, 16681

4. Lo, S.-C. Burn, P. L. Chem. Rev., 2007, 107, 1097

5. Lo, S.-C.; Shipley, C. P.; Bera, R. N.; Harding, R. E.; Burn, P. L.; Samuel, I. D. W., Chem. Mater., 2006, 18, 5119