Adaptable bio-inspired polariton-polariton energy management

Introduction

Humanity is approaching a cornerstone where Climate Change will transform society, industry, and economy. Therefore, moving away from inefficient energy consumption and fossil fuels is more urgent than ever. Renewable energy sources are growing fast, but their full integration will make necessary not just a boost of their efficiency but rather a quantum leap in energy management. Such paradigm change will come from technologies adaptable to changing climate conditions and, importantly, making use of widely available non-critical materials.

Project Vision

ADAPTATION's vision is to challenge current paradigms in solar energy harvesting and their integration by developing a new solar material platform that will integrate thermal management and energy collection in a single material. This approach aims to:

• Reduce electricity peak profile
• Allow easy adaptation of the energy harvesting properties to different climate conditions

For this purpose, we will take inspiration from the two most efficient energy management processes on Earth: photosynthesis and terrestrial radiative cooling.

Methodology

ADAPTATION will mimic simultaneously the strategies followed by plants during photosynthesis to collect and manage energy at the nanoscale and the power-free radiative cooling of Earth by thermal regulation at the microscale.

Key Strategies

These extraordinary energy collection and managing strategies are:

1. Robust to disorder
2. Provide self-regulatory cooling capacities

These features make them ideal to be integrated into a wide spectrum of physical objects, powering them with a sustainable energy source.

Implementation

In ADAPTATION, we will develop the building blocks for this technology and will demonstrate its implementation with two sustainable novel device architectures.

Consortium Expertise

Our innovative vision is based on the multidisciplinary background of its consortium, which includes experts in:

• Geosciences
• Polaritonic photonics
• Colloidal and supramolecular chemistry
• Materials engineering
• Quantum technologies
• Photovoltaics, including high-tech industrial implementation