POLYSOLPV HAs the objective to demonstrate over the next 3 years a new generation of cheap and printable polymer-based solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of 9-10%. The cost of photovoltaic cells based on silicon has been a major impediment to their widespread deployment and organic photovoltaic technology offers a good avenue to decrease that cost and to find new niches of applications related to their light-weight and their flexibility. The technology to be demonstrated will use novel n-type conjugated polymers based on either thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione or bridged thiazole units. These electron-withdrawing co-monomers should decrease both the HOMO and LUMO energy levels when used as co-monomers in donor/acceptor type conjugated polymers. A deeper HOMO-LUMO level should then facilitate the injection and transport of negative charge carriers. These polymeric materials will replace the presently used fullerene derivatives which poorly contribute to the absorption of the light coming from the sun. The development of such novel n-type polymers will also allow the fine tuning of the electronic properties in order to maximize the open circuit voltage of the proposed all-polymer solar cells. The synthetic part will be mainly carried out by the research group of Professor Mario Leclerc at Université Laval, supported by chemists from Saint-Jean Photochemicals (SJPC) and PCAS. This combination of expertises should lead to well-defined and cost-efficient polymeric materials. These new polymers will be fully characterized by using state-of-the-art techniques available at Université Laval and at Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique. The team of Stéphane Guillerez will study the electron mobility of the n-type polymers both in field-effect transistor configuration and in electron only devices in the Space Charge Limited Current regime. They will prepare several polymer blends and morphological studies will be performed on thin films of blends using different donor/acceptor ratios. Solvent effect and thermal treatments will also be investigated. Moreover, with the aim of determining the best compositions for films composed of p and n polymers in the solar cell architecture, hole and electron motilities will be characterised and correlated with film morphology. To make this three year research project a success, four chemists will focus their energy during the first two years to develop and characterize the proposed polymeric structures. This part of the project will involve a budget of 125 000$ for the first year and of 133 000$ for the second one. In the third year, two Ph.D. students will collaborate with SJPC and PCAS to optimize the two most promising polymeric materials which imply a budget of 56 000$ for Prof. Mario Leclerc team. In parallel, Dr. Guillerez and his team will fabricate, evaluate and optimize the all plastic solar cells. Overall, this three-year project will involve a financial support of 311 000$ from NSERC and 317 840 € from ANR. At the end of this project, new air stable n-type conjugated polymers should replace the widely used fullerene derivatives as electron-acceptor component in organic photovoltaic devices and lead to all-plastic solar cells with high power conversion efficiency.

The European Union has been challenged to contribute to the global aim of providing sustainable solutions to the current and future needs on synthetic compounds and materials in the coming years. In this sense, the development of sustainable chemical processes is one of the most important features in modern chemistry. It has become a key research area worldwide, providing solutions to important societal demands by optimizing the use of natural resources and minimizing waste and environmental impact. Among the relevant methods for achieving this goal, catalysis represents a key and central approach. Both Organocatalysis and Metal Catalysis have emerged as solutions to the problems in this context. Despite the enormous advances made towards both types of catalysis, the development of more efficient and general catalysts, as well as synthetic methods is still a challenge. A very similar research-road has occurred in the Photocatalysis area, using visible-light as mild and sustainable energy source. In this context, the pharmaceutical industry has a great impact in our society. Well-stablished organo- and, especially, metal-catalysis have been largely implemented in the chemical industry, both on a micro and ton scale. However, there are only few timid academic applications of novel photocatalytic visible light methodologies into industrial goals. Therefore, the development of cheaper and straightforward methodologies to the incorporation of key photochemical processes is an important field and has a tremendous impact in the industry field. Therefore, greater blending of academia and industry would be desirable for the implementation of photocatalysis in the chemical industry world. Students who can access this doctoral network will have the opportunity to work in European Funded academic researchers and in three Big Pharma companies in a hot field such as photocatalysis with the aim to develop new real industrial solutions.

The organic photovoltaic cells (OPV cells) based on p-conjugated polymers have severals advantages in terms of processability, mechanical flexibility, and low cost manufacturing thanks to printing technologies. Since first works applying this concept, the power conversion efficiencies have regularly improved to reach at present time 8.3 %. The main limitation of this technology is linked to the thin absorption range of the organic materials. To increase the power conversion efficiencies of these OPV devices but also the stability of these devices, the TANDORI project plans to develop stable tandem architectures. The innovative and ambitious aspect of the TANDORI project lies in the combined approach "efficiency / stability" of the elaboration of the tandem devices. Actually, the P-I-N or N-I-P type structure, known as stable structures over time thanks to the development of stable interfacial layers, will be integrated into the tandem architectures. Another task will concern the advanced characterizations of materials and the modelling of the devices which will lead to the optimization of the architectures for a given High Band Gap / Low Band Gap (HBG/LBG) couple of materials, commercial materials or elaborated within the project. Eventually, the TANDORI project will concern the transfer of the process from the laboratory scale to the industrial one (roll-to-roll printing) in order to eleborate flexible tandem modules by an entirely wet process. To sum up, the TANDORI project offers to develop stable tandem cells by a humid process combining stability over 5000 hours of illumination and improvement of the power conversion efficiencies to 10 %, with new families of HBG and LBG active materials. The TANDORI project constitutes the first stage necessary to the industrial development of the tandem cells based on the combined three axes: materials, architectures and processes.