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Polymers
Special Issues
Polymers for Photovoltaics and Wearable Devices
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Polymers for Photovoltaics and Wearable Devices

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 January 2023) | Viewed by 7626

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Fahad Mateen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea
Interests: indoor/outdoor light harvesting; luminescent solar concenrator; thin-film PVs; photoluminescence; dyes and quantum dots
Dr. Mumtaz Ali

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Textile Engineering, National Textile University, Faisalabad, Pakistan
Interests: quantum dots; Nuromorphic memmory devices; thin films; 3rd generation solar cells; nano-reinforcements; smart fabrics; Auxetic materials; composite materials
Dr. Muhammad Ahsan Saeed

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Electrical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
Interests: organic solar cells; conductive polymers; stretchable electronics; flexible solar cells; indoor light energy harvesting
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the development of photovoltaics and wearable devices and the progress in this area expanded at an unparallel pace. Emerging photovoltaic devices based on organic, dye, and perovskite materials have received immense attention due to their cost-effectiveness, solution-processability, ease of fabrication, colorful aesthetics, and robustness. In addition, luminescent solar concentrators (LSC)-PV devices have observed a paradigm shift for their suitability in building-integrated photovoltaic applications under various illumination conditions. The efficiency and stability of such devices greatly depend on their structures and constituents. Aiming to improve device efficiency and stability, various polymeric materials have been extensively used in PV devices.

This Special Issue focuses on the investigation of polymers in photovoltaic devices along with wearable applications, such as wearable sensors for health monitoring, smart textiles, textile coatings (abrasion resistance, medical applications), and functional (bioactive, fire-retardant) textiles. Fiber-reinforced composites, polymer matrix composites, and smart polymers (shape memory, self-healing, etc.). 

This Special Issue aims to highlight the recent advancements in polymers at the interface of energy and wearable applications.

The topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to:

  • Synthesis of polymers for PV devices
  • Optoelectronic properties of polymers and their influence on PV performance
  • Polymer as substrate materials
  • Polymeric electrodes of PV devices
  • Role of polymers as electron and hole transfer layers
  • Conjugated polymer for organic PVs, perovskite solar cells, and LSCs
  • Polymers as active layers in organic PVs
  • Polymer-based micro/nanostructures in binary or ternary devices to influence device performances
  • Polymers matrix for LSCs
  • Flexible PV devices
  • Polymer composites
  • Smart composites
  • Auxetic fabrics
  • Fibers and Textiles
  • Neuromorphic memory devices
  • Sensors for health monitoring
  • Catalysts for dye degradation.

Dr. Fahad Mateen
Dr. Mumtaz Ali
Dr. Muhammad Ahsan Saeed
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • solar cells
  • luminescent solar concentrator
  • perovskite PVs
  • conjugated polymers
  • polymer composite
  • fibres and textiles
  • optoelectronics
  • conductive polymers
  • organic solar cells
  • dye-sensitized solar cells

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 8521 KiB  
Article
Room Temperature Synthesized TiO2 Nanoparticles for Two-Folds Enhanced Mechanical Properties of Unsaturated Polyester
by Muhammad Shoaib, Zeeshan Latif, Mumtaz Ali, Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, Zafar Arshad and S. Wageh
Polymers 2023, 15(4), 934; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15040934 - 13 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1527
Abstract
Using of nano-inclusion to reinforce polymeric materials has emerged as a potential technique to achieve an upper extreme of specific strength. Despite the significant improvement of mechanical properties via nano-reinforcements, the commercial application of such nano-composites is still restricted, due to high cost [...] Read more.
Using of nano-inclusion to reinforce polymeric materials has emerged as a potential technique to achieve an upper extreme of specific strength. Despite the significant improvement of mechanical properties via nano-reinforcements, the commercial application of such nano-composites is still restricted, due to high cost and unwanted aggregation of nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. To address these issues, here we proposed a scalable and economical synthesis of TiO2 at low temperatures, resulting in self-dispersed nanoparticles, without any surfactant. As lower energy is consumed in the synthesis and processing of such nanoparticles, so their facile gram-scale synthesis is possible. The defect-rich surface of such nanoparticles accommodates excessive dangling bonds, serving as a center for the functional groups on the surface. Functional surface enables high dispersion stability of room temperature synthesized TiO2 particles. With this motivation, we optimized the processing conditions and concentration of as-synthesized nano-particles for better mechanical properties of unsaturated polyester (UP) resin. The composite structure (UP-TiO2) showed nearly two folds higher tensile, flexural, and impact strength, with 4% content of nanoparticles. Characterization tools show that these better mechanical properties are attributed to a strong interface and superior dispersion of nanoparticles, which facilitate better stress distribution in the composite structure. In addition, the crack generation and propagation are restricted at a much smaller scale in nanocomposites, therefore significant improvement in mechanical properties was observed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymers for Photovoltaics and Wearable Devices)
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15 pages, 3116 KiB  
Article
Exploring the Potential of Alternate Inorganic Fibers for Automotive Composites
by Muhammad Shoaib, Hafsa Jamshaid, Mubark Alshareef, Fahad Ayesh Alharthi, Mumtaz Ali and Muhammad Waqas
Polymers 2022, 14(22), 4946; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14224946 - 16 Nov 2022
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2135
Abstract
Composites are a promising material for high-specific strength applications; specifically, fiber-reinforced polymer composites (FRPCs) are in the limelight for their extraordinary mechanical properties. Amongst all FRPCs, carbon fiber reinforcements are dominant in the aerospace and automotive industry; however, their high cost poses a [...] Read more.
Composites are a promising material for high-specific strength applications; specifically, fiber-reinforced polymer composites (FRPCs) are in the limelight for their extraordinary mechanical properties. Amongst all FRPCs, carbon fiber reinforcements are dominant in the aerospace and automotive industry; however, their high cost poses a great obstacle in commercial-scale manufacturing. To this end, we explored alternate low-cost inorganic fibers such as basalt and rockwool as potential replacements for carbon fiber composites. In addition to fibrous inclusions to polymers, composites were also fabricated with inclusions of their respective particulates formed using ball milling of fibers. Considering automotive applications, composites’ mechanical and thermo-mechanical properties were compared for all samples. Regarding mechanical properties, rockwool fiber and basalt fiber composites showed 30.95% and 20.77% higher impact strength than carbon fiber, respectively. In addition, rockwool and basalt fiber composites are less stiff than carbon and can be used in low-end applications in the automotive industry. Moreover, rockwool and basalt fiber composites are more thermally stable than carbon fiber. Thermogravimetric analysis of carbon fiber composites showed 10.10 % and 9.98 % higher weight loss than basalt and rockwool fiber composites, respectively. Apart from better impact and thermal properties, the low cost of rockwool and basalt fibers provides a key advantage to these alternate fibers at the commercial scale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymers for Photovoltaics and Wearable Devices)
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13 pages, 4200 KiB  
Article
A Tunable and Wearable Dual-Band Metamaterial Absorber Based on Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Substrate for Sensing Applications
by Qana A. Alsulami, S. Wageh, Ahmed A. Al-Ghamdi, Rana Muhammad Hasan Bilal and Muhammad Ahsan Saeed
Polymers 2022, 14(21), 4503; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14214503 - 25 Oct 2022
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 2038
Abstract
Advanced wireless communication technology claims miniaturized, reconfigurable, highly efficient, and flexible meta-devices for various applications, including conformal implementation, flexible antennas, wearable sensors, etc. Therefore, bearing these challenges in mind, a dual-band flexible metamaterial absorber (MMA) with frequency-reconfigurable characteristics is developed in this research. [...] Read more.
Advanced wireless communication technology claims miniaturized, reconfigurable, highly efficient, and flexible meta-devices for various applications, including conformal implementation, flexible antennas, wearable sensors, etc. Therefore, bearing these challenges in mind, a dual-band flexible metamaterial absorber (MMA) with frequency-reconfigurable characteristics is developed in this research. The geometry of the proposed MMA comprises a square patch surrounded by a square ring, which is mounted over a copper-backed flexible dielectric substrate. The top surface of the MMA is made of silver nanoparticle ink and a middle polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate backed by a copper groundsheet. The proposed MMA shows an absorption rate of above 99% at 24 and 35 GHz. In addition, the absorption features are also studied for different oblique incident angles, and it is found that the proposed MMA remains stable for θ = 10–50°. The frequency tunability characteristics are achieved by stimulating the capacitance of the varactor diode, which connects the inner patch with the outer ring. To justify the robustness and conformability of the presented MMA, the absorption features are also studied by bending the MMA over different radii of an arbitrary cylinder. Moreover, a multiple-reflection interference model is developed to justify the simulated and calculated absorption of the proposed MMA. It is found that the simulated and calculated results are in close agreement with each other. This kind of MMA could be useful for dual-band sensing and filtering operations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymers for Photovoltaics and Wearable Devices)
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