Advanced Solar Energy Materials: Methods and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Current trends in energy supply and use are patently unsustainable—economically, environmentally, and socially. We can—and must—change our current path and increase our use of sunlight as an energy resource, which is continually replenished, environmentally friendly, and easily usable by means of different solar technologies. There is a need to provide a solid analytical footing that enables the international community to move forward on a well-defined growth path from today to 2050, one that identifies solar coating materials, cross applications, and characterization milestones needed to realize the full potential of different solar technologies. Very often in the scientific community, there is an excessive sectorialization that, in my opinion, is detrimental to the success of the tremendously important goal of capitalizing solar energy.

As the Guest Editor of this Special Issue, I am writing to inquire as to whether you would consider contributing a communication, original research article or review paper on new solar materials treating the following topics:

• Solar coatings for thermal plants working at different temperatures based on metamaterials and metasurfaces with spectrally selective behavior; new intrinsically absorbing materials; semiconductors with tailorable bandgap; textured transition metal surfaces; metal–dielectric interferential filters; cermet-based multilayers with sharp cut-off of optical reflectance between absorptive and emissive behavior.
• Emerging photovoltaic solar materials including, but not limited to, utilization in devices such as organic photovoltaics (OPVs), dye-sensitized (DSSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs) made from polymers, molecules, or (colloidal) precursors, among many other material classes such as oxides, chalcogenides, or silicides.
• Aging of solar materials: modeling, simulation, and experimental tests at the nanoscale.
• Advanced materials for thermal storage systems: phase change materials (PCM), pure salts, salt eutectics, metals and metal eutectics, nano-enhanced PCM, nanofluids.
• Antisoiling coatings for solar applications.
• Self-cleaning solar materials.
• Catalytic solar coatings employed as alternative electrodes to platinum in the water-splitting process (e.g., transition metal nitrides in HER or OER reactions).

The Special Issue will promote a largely multidisciplinary approach. We are extending our invitation to contribute not only to experts in the field but also to other researchers with innovative proposals.

Thank you for your attention.

Dr. Anna Castaldo
Guest Editor

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• solar coatings for thermal plants
• emerging photovoltaic solar coatings
• aging of solar coatings: modeling, simulation, experimental tests at the nanoscale
• barrier coatings for fluids and their subproducts in storage systems
• antisoiling coatings for solar applications
• self-cleaning solar materials
• catalytic solar coatings
• sustainable building coatings for transparent and opaque envelopes