Congratulations to Guanpeng (Morton) Lyu for the first paper of 2020, entitled “Thermoresponsive Host Polymer Matrix for Self-Healing Luminescent Solar Concentrators”, to be accepted for publication in ACS Applied Energy Materials. The work is a collaboration with Gianmarco Griffini’s group in Milan and features the work of Benedetta, who spent part of her MSc project here in 2018 and worked with Morton.

This work reports a thin-film luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) based on a thermally reversible cross-linked host polymer, which exhibits excellent self-healing capacities. The smart cross-linked host polymer material is obtained via a dynamic-chemistry approach based on the Diels-Alder (DA) reaction between a furan-functionalised acrylic copolymer and an aliphatic bismaleimide. The cross-linked host polymer materials obtained from the DA reaction is optically clear, and capable of healing mechanical damage upon heat treatment. By carefully tuning the concentration of a perylene-based luminophore dopant, an optical efficiency as high as 4.9% can be achieved. In addition, full recovery of device efficiency is demonstrated after complete thermal healing of mechanically induced surface damages as a result of the embedded DA functionality. This work will pave the way for the development of highly efficient multifunctional thermoresponsive smart LSC systems.

Thermoresponsive Host Polymer Matrix for Self-Healing Luminescent Solar Concentrators, E. Tatsi, G. Fortunato, B. Rigatelli, G. Lyu, S. Turri, R.C. Evans*, G. Griffini*, ACS Appl. Energy Mater., 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.9b02196