Tailored Organic Compounds for Solar Energy Collection and Conversion

The development of robust and cost-effective solutions for the efficient exploitation of renewable energy sources, such as sunlight, is a topic of exceptional scientific, social and economic relevance. In this context, research on new organic compounds plays a pivotal role, since they have found wide application as functional materials in a host of different solar conversion technologies. Over the years, our group has been involved in the design, synthesis and characterization of many such compounds for use in different catalytic, electrochemical and optical devices for solar energy conversion, including: light harvesters for solar cells and photocatalytic H2 production, hole-transporting materials for perovskite solar cells and fluorescent compounds for sunlight collection and concentration. Concerning the latter application, we recently focused on the synthesis of organic fluorophores able to absorb and re-emit light in selected regions of the visible spectrum, since they can be used both for the fabrication of luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) with precise chromatic properties, as well as in greenhouse-integrated systems for the enhancement of plants photosynthetic efficiency. In this communication, we will report details on the design of such compounds, their preparationprocedures and their complete spectroscopic characterization.