Crafting Hybrid Perovskites for Sustainable Energy Applications

Hybrid perovskites are gaining increasing attention for energy conversion and storage due to the application potential of perovskites being controlled by cations in sublattice sites which correlates with the amount of oxygen (O2) o*- antibonding and the degree of B-site transition metal-O2 covalency. The fabrication of hybrid perovskites via different materials processing routes offers the opportunity for structural tunability and modification of their optical, electronic, and chemical properties via defect chemistry.

Accordingly, this project aims to develop new materials processing methods to produce a new class of two-dimensional hybrid perovskite composites with tailorable features via bottom-up synthetic routes. Using a combination of diffraction, microscopic and spectroscopic tools, structure-function relationships will be determined. The proposed methodology offers control and versatility to bridge the hybrid materials discovery gap while tackling open scientific questions regarding the interplay between sustainable inorganic components, physicochemical properties (i.e., defects, structure, phase, etc.) and their influence on simultaneous and enhanced individual energy scavenging via photoelectrochemical and electrochemical effects. Combining these fundamental insights with controlled growth, will enable the design of innovative perovskite formulations that can facilitate discovery and understanding of new hybrid materials for energy conversion and storage and beyond.