Advanced Functional Materials for Energy, Environment and Biomedical Applications

The research- and application-oriented projects on advanced materials and nanotechnology, renewable energy, photovoltaic technologies, smart windows, environmental technologies are reaching out beyond Norway?s borders. Multidisciplinary nature of the planned research, dissemination, testing, and marketing requires the competence that is beyond the capability that individual groups have. For that reason, active international collaboration, further strengthening the industry-academic and academic-academic collaborations, training of manpower from young researchers and PhD students, infrastructure and knowledge exchange, market analysis, dissemination, etc are integral part of modern projects. During the last few years, the Department for Solar Energy of the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), Kjeller, Norway has established collaboration with some academic institutions and companies in India, Spain, Estonia, and Turkey. Main focus of the network is synthesis and study of properties of advanced bulk and nano materials for energy and environment-related applications, developing industrially viable methods of synthesis, usage of non-toxic and abundant elements, and enhancing industry-academic collaboration. More specifically, silicon production, hybrid materials synthesis and fabrication and characterization of energy storage devices based on Li ion batteries, developing energy efficient coatings for buildings (smart windows) as well as building-integrated photovoltaic devices and energy systems have been under the research focus. The aim of the present proposal is to organize a Workshop for the network that will form the platform for further enhancing the collaboration between research and education-related Institutions as well as industry and for initiating implementation of the scientific products developed in IFE in Indian market.