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RESEARCH LINES

Materials for Energy Research Line

Strategic research on sustainable materials for light harvesting, heat management, electrochemical energy storage, green fuels and superconducting technologies.

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Research Lines Overview

Advanced materials for the clean energy transition

The Materials for Energy Research Line brings together ICMAB expertise in functional materials, nanostructures, electrochemistry, superconductivity, catalysis and device-oriented research to address global energy challenges.

ICMAB has established an internationally recognised position in clean energy transition research, with contributions ranging from light harvesting and heat management to post-lithium energy storage, hydrogen production, CO2 conversion and high-temperature superconducting materials.

The line connects fundamental materials science with scalable technologies and real-world energy applications, reinforcing ICMAB’s role as a European research institute working for sustainable energy systems.

Research focus areas

Materials for Energy integrates complementary approaches to generate, store, convert, transport and manage energy more efficiently and sustainably.

Photovoltaics

Light harvesting

Emergent photovoltaic technologies, organic semiconductors, polar oxides, hybrid perovskites and engineered photonic materials.
Thermal energy

Heat management

Organic and carbon-based thermoelectric nanocomposites, anisotropic heat transport and thermal transport at the nanoscale.
Electrochemistry

Energy storage

Post-lithium electrochemical systems, multivalent-ion batteries, redox-flow batteries and high-power supercapacitors.
Catalysis

Green fuels

Photocatalysts, hydrogen production, water splitting and CO2 conversion into fuels and industrial chemicals.
High-power systems

Superconductivity

High-temperature superconducting materials, advanced growth routes and superconducting devices for energy-efficient technologies.
Materials processing

Scalable technologies

Cost-effective, upscalable materials processing and proof-of-concept devices for sustainable energy applications.

Scientific challenges

The research line is organised around five strategic challenges that connect materials design, advanced characterization, modelling and device-oriented validation.

Challenge 1

Earth-abundant elements for novel light harvesting devices

Photovoltaics, hybrid perovskites, organic semiconductors, engineered optical properties and scalable light-harvesting architectures.
Challenge 2

Efficient heat management materials and novel phononic devices

Thermal transport, thermoelectrics, anisotropic materials and device concepts for harvesting, guiding and managing heat.
Challenge 3

Viable electrochemical energy storage with abundant elements

Post-lithium batteries, redox flow systems, supercapacitors and abundant-element electrochemical storage technologies.
Challenge 4

Sustainable and stable catalysts for green fuels production

Photocatalysis, hydrogen production, CO2 conversion, low-cost catalysts and sustainable fuels.
Challenge 5

Superconducting materials for high-power energy applications

High-temperature superconductors, ultrafast growth, vortex physics and high-power technologies for clean energy systems.

Challenge 1: Earth-abundant elements for novel light harvesting devices

While massive photovoltaic (PV) deployment is required, the development of clever technologies that can minimize competition with terrain use (i.e. beyond solar farms) will be necessary (e.g. integrating PV in existing infrastructure and buildings or sharing the land with agriculture). Materials based on earth-abundant elements (oxides and organic semiconductors) will be used and their optical properties will be engineered to tailor the response for selected applications. For instance, the bandgap of these materials can be chemically tuned (for multi-junctions or selective harvesting). Fundamental understanding of aging mechanisms (e.g. evolution of the donor:acceptor microstructure) will be explored using customized XRD Micro Probe System.

New 3D architectures (flexible ultrathin films featuring engineered photonic, magnetic or ferroelectric response) will be developed via scalable nanofabrication techniques to provide novel pathways for light harvesting devices enabling a range of new applications.

Researchers involved

Challenge 2: Efficient heat management materials and novel phononic devices

Heat is a source of energy coming at very different temperatures and heater shapes, requiring specific point-of-harvest technologies. We will tackle the heat challenge by: i) using thermal anisotropy to improve heat management, investigating quasi-2D systems, such as polymeric thin films, where heat transport can be enhanced by controlling molecular orientation and geometric anisotropy, to dissipate heat from electronic devices more efficiently.

Materials should have high thermal conductivity (at least in certain directions) but not be electrically conductive, as otherwise, they may lead to shortcuts in the circuits. ii) achieve efficient (low temperature) heat to electricity conversion by combining anisotropic thermal properties with advanced doping methods to decouple thermal and electronic transport. Hybridizing thermoelectrics and magnetocaloric systems will also be investigated for wireless charging solutions for powering implantable medical devices. iii) materials capable of heat transport dynamically modified by means of a fast external field (e.g. magnetic, light, etc.) to demonstrate novel phononic device concepts.

Researchers involved

Challenge 3: Viable electrochemical energy storage with abundant elements

EES is key to efficient and large scale deployment of renewable energies, Li-ion batteries leading the way. However, there is strong pressure on raw material cost (e.g. 10-fold increase for LiCO3 for less than 0.2% of electric vehicles today). The ever growing variety of applications (grid, Internet of Things etc.) will worsen the situation. Sustainable and low cost alternatives are urgently needed. Our fundamental understanding of redox and interfacial processes will enable high capacity, sustainable and low cost anodes (Zn, nanostructured, surface engineered Si and new metal alloys), and polyoxometalates as alternatives to vanadium (a critical raw material) in redox flow batteries. Redox mechanisms at atomic level for organic, Prussian blue analogues, MnO2 or blended cathodes will be investigated aiming at enhanced reversibility, hence lower cost per cycle. The use of a large variety of operando techniques (including synchrotron based ones) will be of particular help to such purposes. Our alliance with the ALBA synchrotron is particularly promising for this research, and ensures its viability. Finally, high power supercapacitors based on composites oxide nanoparticles and doped nanocarbon produced at competitive costs by advanced laser processing will also be investigated.

Researchers involved

Challenge 4: Sustainable and stable catalysts for green fuels production

Green fuel production, particularly hydrogen, is an important part of the new RePowerEU plan aiming at replacing almost 10% of Russian gas consumption with hydrogen power. However, achieving cost effective green fuel production remains a challenge and effort within Matrans42 will be dedicated towards the development of novel low cost, highly stable and efficient (photo)catalysts for alcohol reforming, water electrolysis and splitting using sun light. In particular, thin films or nanostructured composites based on aerogel/lyogels, graphene based materials, metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) and non-noble-metal glasses or oxides nanoparticles (such as Ce-Al-based and Ti-based metal glasses, TiO2, ZnO, graphitic C3N4, etc.) will be explored. New synthetic methods such as high-power laser-induced crystallization in liquid media and supercritical CO2 will be used targeting low moderate production costs and optimum catalyst stability. Finally, multi-functionalized 3D graphene oxide aerogels will also be used as a catalyst for hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) reaction of CO2 or bio-oil (derived from biomass) to produce valuable fuels. Enhanced process sustainability will be achieved by adding functionalized MOFs capable of in-situ production of H2 (necessary for the HDO).

Researchers involved

Challenge 5: Superconducting materials for high-power energy applications

High-temperature superconductivity (HTS) will provide zero emission targets by enabling fusion power, expanding renewable energy and facilitating zero emission transport. To deploy these technologies, we need R&D in HTS, from materials fabrication to their customization for integration into devices. The challenges we foresee are i) Generate fundamental knowledge of the transient liquid assisted growth non-equilibrium ultrafast growth process (made in ICMAB), as a game-changer for high-throughput HTS nanostructured materials, with ALBA synchrotron's newly developed in situ synchrotron platform and machine learning optimisation approaches, with the idea of transferring this technology to industry; ii) Investigate the physics of vortices under extreme conditions (magnetic field, frequency) and their impact on mechanical-electrical-thermal properties (simulations and tests) to fill the knowledge gap and enable HTS materials for large-scale energy-efficient applications in fusion, power transmission and high energy physics, fostering existing collaboration with key research infrastructures (CERN) and industries.

Researchers involved

Coordination and research community

The Materials for Energy Research Line is coordinated by ICMAB researchers and supported by a broad community of postdoctoral researchers and PhD students working across the energy challenges.

Coordinator

Postdoctoral researchers

PhD researchers

Connected to the ICMAB research ecosystem

Materials for Energy connects strategic research lines, research units, groups and scientific services to accelerate sustainable materials research.

Advancing sustainable energy through materials science

The Materials for Energy Research Line contributes to the development of clean, secure and efficient energy technologies through advanced materials research, interdisciplinary collaboration and shared scientific infrastructure.

Research Lines Overview
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