Speaker: Professor Hongxia Wang - Queensland University of Technology
Date: Friday 19 September
Time: 11:00am
Venue: Lecture Theatre 3 - CEB
Abstract: Semiconductor materials based on metal halide perovskites have attracted significant attention from both the research community and industry over the past decade, due to their impressive performance in solar cells and other optoelectronic devices such as light-emitting diodes.
Currently, the most widely used methods for synthesizing perovskite films rely on solution processing which involves large quantities of hazardous, highly coordinating aprotic polar solvents, such as dimethylformamide (DMF). The toxic nature of these solvents raises serious concerns regarding their impact on human health, safety, and the environment. In particular, DMF—one of the most commonly used solvents in current perovskite synthesis—has been officially banned for use in manufacturing within Europe. This regulatory restriction poses a significant barrier to the commercial production of metal halide perovskite materials for various applications (1).
Therefore, it is critical to develop alternative, sustainable solution-processing methods that employ environmentally friendly, green solvent systems. In my talk, I will present our research on the development of green processing techniques for synthesizing metal halide perovskites using environmentally benign solvents such as water, protic ionic liquids, and biomass-derived solvents (2,3).
I will demonstrate how the choice of solvent system during synthesis influences the physicochemical properties of the resulting perovskite materials—including their morphology, and optical and electrical characteristics—as well as the selection of precursor materials. These factors, in turn, play a decisive role in determining device performance and stability in applications such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes.
Reference
[1]. Minh Tam Hoang, Feray Ünlü, Wayde Martens, John Bell, Sanjay Mathur, Hongxia Wang, “Towards the environmentally friendly solution processing of metal halide perovskite technology”, Green Chemistry, 2021, 23, 5302-5336.
[2]. Minh Tam Hoang, Yang Yang, Ngoc Duy Pham, Hongxia Wang, “Ecofriendly Solution Processing of Perovskite Solar Cells using Water”, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2024, 15(26), 6880-6889.
[3]. Minh Tam Hoang, Ngoc Duy Pham, Yang Yang, Vincent Tiing Tiong, Chao Zhang, Ke Gui, Hong Chen, Jin Chang, Jianpu Wang, Dmitri Golberg, John Bell, Hongxia Wang, A facile, environmentally friendly synthesis of strong photo-emissive methylammonium lead bromide perovskite nanocrystals enabled by ionic liquids’, Green Chemistry, 2020, 22(11), 3433-3440.
Biography:
Hongxia Wang is a Professor and Australia Research Council (ARC) Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Her research focuses on developing sustainable approaches for fabricating advanced solar cells and energy storage devices with enhanced performance and longevity. She has conducted extensive research on sensitized solar cells, perovskite solar cells, CZTS-based thin-film solar cells, supercapacitors, and batteries.
Dr. Wang has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles and two book chapters and is the inventor of four patents in energy materials and applications. She is an elected Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (FRACI). Additionally, she serves as a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts (2020–2025).
Her achievements have been recognized with multiple awards, including the ‘Solar Energy Journal Best Paper Award for 2016 in Photovoltaics’ (International Solar Energy Society) and ‘the Best Research Paper Award in Manufacturing and Material Science’ (China Association for Science and Technology, 2023). She has also received several prestigious fellowships, such as the ARC Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship (2024), ARC Future Fellowship (2012), ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship (Industry, APDI, 2007), and QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowship (2010).