Dr Nathaniel Davis was our speaker this week. He is a MacDiarmid researcher and lecturer in physical chemistry at Victoria University. Nathaniel began by giving us an overview of the MacDiarmid refreshed direction then followed with an introduction to his own research.
The MacDiarmid Institute, one of our Centres of Research Excellence (CoREs) is Wellington-based but with researchers from across the New Zealand research community. The Institute founding Director, Sir Paul Callaghan, believed science and technology could transform our culture and our economy. He also believed New Zealand could and should be a place where talent wants to live – rather than having to live and work overseas. Since starting around 2000, 16 companies have been spun out of the Institute and many students have gone on to work in industry.
The Institute’s materials science focus is now on New Zealand’s zero carbon future and our renewable economy, addressing problems we are going to face – not only in renewable energy, but also our need for more energy. Our demand for energy has increased exponentially. For example, our early mobiles were used for texts and calls, but we now expect so much more of them – so need so much more from their batteries. MacDiarmid is working on a range of battery technologies to meet these changing needs.
Researchers are also working on ways to get the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by creating new materials that absorb carbon dioxide.
The Government is interested in a hydrogen economy. The Institute is working on catalysts to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Nathaniel grew up in Australia and did his PhD at Cambridge. One of the key reasons why he moved to New Zealand was because of the Government’s position on renewable energy and interest in technology solutions. Some of his research was recently shown to the Prime Minister and he acknowledges this would never happen in Australia.
Nathaniel works on organic and inorganic semiconductors manipulating small and large nano-crystals to come together to achieve new energy interactions and properties for new and novel materials. These materials can be used in solar panels, LEDS and solar concentrators. Solar panel efficiency has plateaued at 33% – essentially having reached their scientific limits. Nathaniel’s research hopes to break through this barrier, referring to joining photons together - but we will leave the technical detail at that!
He talked about his vision of windows in buildings having a small panels around the edge that would include solar panels. By creating cost effective smart films able to be printed, he believes we will be able to compete with the big solar panel manufactures.
We were all convinced Nathaniel is on to something with his solar concentrators - until he admitted it doesn’t work yet! But it’s early days and with his obvious ability and enthusiasm we will follow his research with interest. It seems Nathaniel is an excellent example of the talent Sir Paul was referring to.
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