Higher Education Doctorate

A three-year doctoral grant is funded by the Regione Emilia-Romagna (for a graduate student working on activities with high level qualification) from the European Social Fund with a project entitled “Development and optimization of bio-colorants from agri-food byproducts for the construction of architecturally integrated solar cells for sustainable housing", scientific advisors: Prof. Alessandro Massi, Prof. Stefano Caramori.

This project envisages the training of a scientific/professional figure having expertise in the second-generation valorization of agri-food by-products (organic pigments) applied to the realization of solar cells. The project falls within the Emilia-Romagna declared value chains concerning the development of photoelectrochemical devices for conversion of solar energy and, in general, of the indoor and outdoor architectural light energy. This is fully in line with the aims of the value chain LOW CARBON ECONOMY (LowCarbon ER) regarding the transition of the regional economy to a better environmental sustainability. At the same time, the project has a bearing on the value chain AGRIFOOD (SPES, Valorization of byproducts and waste) which focuses on the use of waste and byproducts from agro-food industry for the production of medium/high-added value molecules, namely bio-colorants and their chemical derivatives, able to absorb and convert solar energy into electricity in transparent photoelectrochemical cells based on TiO₂ (titanium dioxide) substrates. Besides, the visual characteristics of the solar cells which will be built (transparency, available color palette) provide for their integration as architectural features. This takes place within the framework of home energy recovery, with cells being possibly used as outdoor devices (integration in windows and glass walls) and indoor apparatus for the intelligent energy management (gobo, etc.), and also as energy source for smart home, sensor applications, rechargeable devices etc. (Value Chain G2B, Energy Efficiency and Sustainability in Construction). It should be noted that these solar cells give beneficial use, compared to the ones based on silicon, in soft light (autumn and winter months in the region) and diffuse light conditions, allowing recovery of in-house low energy with an efficiency greater than 20%.