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Issue 19 – August 24, 2022
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Free registration is now open to attend the CINE scientific conference, which will be held in person on October 18th and 19th this year in the city of Campinas (SP, Brazil) at the Vitória Hotel Concept. In oral and poster sessions, CINE members will present their latest research results and discuss the role of these studies in the development of new technologies for the current energy transition. The event will also feature prominent speakers from Brazil and abroad.Spaces are limited! Learn more about the program and register on the conference page.
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RESEARCH
CINE researchers and collaborators present a way to produce chemical compounds for the industry using a polymeric electrolyte fuel cell as a reactor, a copper-based coordination complex as a catalyst and, as raw materials, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and water. The work was carried out within the Methane to Products division.
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CINE MEMBERS
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Rodrigo Szostak won a honorable mention at the Brazilian National CAPES Dissertation Award 2022, Chemistry area, for his doctoral thesis on the use of techniques based on synchrotron radiation for the characterization of perovskites for solar cells, defended in 2021 at IQ-UNICAMP. The award-winning research was carried out in the context of the CINE´s Dense Energy Carriers division, with the supervision of Professor Ana Flávia Nogueira (UNICAMP), researcher and director of the center, and co-supervision of the LNLS-CNPEM researcher Hélio Tolentino.
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Professor Lucia Helena Mascaro (UFSCar), a researcher at CINE’s Dense Energy Carriers Division, is the new associate editor of the journal Química Nova, edited by the Brazilian Chemical Society. Created in 1978, the journal publishes articles on original research results, reviews, education, new methods or techniques and other topics in the Chemistry area.
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RESEARCH
This article contributes to the quest to improve the stability of perovskite films and perovskite solar cells. The authors elucidate the formation mechanisms of perovskites treated with two different cations, and explain the influence of this on the performance of solar cells. The work resulted from a collaboration between members of CINE’s Dense Energy Carriers division and researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA).
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RESEARCH
This computational study may offer new directions for extracting charge carriers – a fundamental aspect in the operation of solar cells and other energy generation devices. The article presents a charge separation mechanism in semiconductor heterostructures formed by transition metal dichalogenides. The work was carried out by researchers from the Computational Materials Science and Chemistry division at CINE and collaborators.
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REVIEW
This article discusses a promising material for solar-driven water splitting: tungsten trioxide (WO3). In addition to showing the advantages of the material as a low-cost, efficient and stable photoanode, the authors, members of the Dense Energy Carriers division, review the recent scientific literature in search of strategies that further increase the photoelectroactivity of WO3 films to enable their use outside the laboratory.
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RESEARCH
This theoretical work carried out within the CINE´s Computational Science division describes the complete dehydrogenation that occurs with the methane molecule when interacting with a cerium oxide nanocluster, as well as the formation, during the process, of molecules of interest in the energy field, such as methanol and hydrogen. The study shows the possibility of generating new chemical compounds through this process.
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RESEARCH
This paper by researchers from CINE’s Methane to Products division and collaborators addresses platinum- and antimony-based catalysts. In addition to reporting the synthesis and characterization of these materials, the authors investigate their use in the oxidation reaction of glycerol (a compound obtained as a residue in the production of biodiesel) and the consequent formation of other substances of industrial interest. The authors use a fuel cell as a reactor.
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CINE NEWS
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CINE had two visits to its headquarters in July. On the 13th and 14th, Diego Bagnis, scientific director of Onnin (former CSEM), visited research laboratories and met with the CINE director Ana Flavia Nogueira and other members of the Dense Energy Carriers division. Onnin has two recent partnerships with CINE. In the first one, which also involves a laboratory at UFSC, CINE will contribute to the development of new formulations of perovskites suited to the climatic conditions in Brazil. The second partnership involves researchers from UFRN and aims to investigate the use of graphene and niobium oxide in solar cells within a FINEP project.
On the 27th, the president of Nissan Mercosul, Airton Cousseau, and other representatives of the vehicle manufacturer were received by professors Hudson Zanin and Gustavo Doubek, members of the Advanced Energy Storage division, and visited laboratories of batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells. The objective was to learn more about the ethanol-based transport electrification program for carbon emissions reduction that is being developed at UNICAMP with the participation of CINE members.
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