LuSH Art project aims at developing new hybrid nanomaterials which are light powered by energy migration and to fabricate new luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) taking inspiration from a tree leaf.
Lush Art project is founded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship
Reduction of CO2 level in the atmosphere is a crucial problem for the life survival on Earth and most of the countries, as well as the European Union, have set challenging goals to decrease it in the future decades. The production of solar fuels from water splitting and CO2 reduction by photocatalysis can be a key tool in this direction. Although the progresses in this field are fast, both scientific and technical important issues are still open. In multielectron chemistry, the solar light absorption by the sensitizer is the limiting step. In nature, plants and algae are highly efficient at converting CO2 in fuels working at low light flux thanks to energy transfer. Molecular antennas, transferring energy among them, funnel it to a single catalytic reaction center. This is the inspiring principle of LuSH Art, where new light harvesting antennas based on self-assembly aggregation, either from organic molecules or quantum dots, will be used to fast deliver energy to reactive centers. These heterostructures will be integrated in a new LSC for artificial photosynthesis. This project, which involves industrial collaboration with the Renewable Energy and Environmental R&D Center in Novara, has a multidisciplinary approach and its possible outcomes could impact several other research fields in chemistry and material science.
