Nanoweek concluded last Friday with the announcement that CRANN, the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices, at Trinity College Dublin had completed arrangements for a collaboration with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST, Saudi Arabia) which has the potential of solving some of the technological issues on the path towards massive solar energy production.
The project, sponsored by KAUST, is worth €1 million and will involve two senior researchers and three PhD students both at KAUST and TCD, and it will avail of the computational power of the KAUST supercomputer Sasheen.
The total solar energy absorbed on earth in one year is double that which will ever be extracted from all non-renewable sources combined (petrol, natural gas, nuclear etc.). One hour of solar irradiation surpasses the world’s current annual energy consumption. CRANN and KAUST are exploring how to efficiently harvest these enormous amounts of energy in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.
Prof John Boland, director of CRANN said: “We are very excited about the collaboration between KAUST and CRANN and the work that is being done has huge potential benefits in addressing the challenge facing the world to find renewable and green sources of energy.”
H.E. Ambassador Abdulaziz Aldriss, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia said, “The collaboration between KAUST and CRANN is a further testament of the established and strengthened links between universities and research institutes in Saudi Arabia and Ireland and I would like to pay tribute to all those instrumental in establishing this ambitious partnership in the interest of delivering world leading research and innovation.
“The government of Saudi Arabia acknowledges the critical role of Research and Development in both international industry and education, and has, therefore, placed a strong strategic focus on investment in research.”
The joint project aims at understanding the fundamental limitations of solar energy conversion, paving the way for a new generation of photovoltaic devices, more efficient and cheaper than those currently available. The computational tools developed in Professor Sanvito’s group at CRANN are in fact so versatile that a much broader range of devices can be simulated, including photovoltaic cells, novel bio-sensors and chemical sensors.
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