The National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) establishes the objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increases of renewable energies and energy efficiency by 2030. To achieve them, it is necessary, among others, to create efficient devices with new advanced materials that allow generating and storing energy in a safe, sustainable and clean way.

 

In recent years, there has been enormous interest in two-dimensional materials due to their exceptional properties. In particular, graphene was the protagonist in the initiative for Future and Emerging Technologies (FET-Graphene Flagship) created in 2013 by the European Union, to address the new scientific and technological challenges that this material poses.This interest has spread to other two-dimensional (2D) materials with very promising applications.

 

The project REGRAP-2D proposes the development of 2D graphenic and non-graphenic materials and 3D graphene-based materials and their incorporation into various devices:

 

a) Energy generation devices. In silicon heterojunction and Schottky type solar cells.

b) Electrical energy storage devices. Specifically in double-layer supercapacitors, implementing both 2D and 3D functionalized graphene materials in their electrodes.

c) Devices for researching in hydrogen storage with 3D graphene-based materials.

 

In addition, the project includes the development of an electronic interface to allow the integration of the energy generator (solar cell) and the energy storage (supercapacitor) in a single device, with maximum efficiency. In this sense, the aim is to cover every area, from the generation of renewable energy to its storage and exploitation.

 

This project proposes that the design and manufacture of the new solar cells and the hydrogen storage devices as well as the integration of the solar cells with the supercapacitors be carried out at the Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT), while the Institute of Optoelectronic Systems and Microtechnologies (ISOM), from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, is the responsible for the growth of the graphene through chemical vapour deposition (CVD), that graphene and other 2D materials transfer to solar cells and the manufacture of supercapacitors with these materials.

 

The complexity of the project requires the participation of different groups with different specialities that collaborate to achieve the proposed objectives.

 

These objectives are clearly integrated at the national level, in the PNIEC and in the R+D+i National Program Oriented to the Challenges of Society and in the guidelines for the Ecological Energy Transition, as well as in the recent Draft of the Energy Storage Strategy. At the European level, they are part of the European Green Deal to achieve a sustainable economy, of the "Clean Energy for All Europeans" Package and of the European Energy Research Alliance, in several aspects, such as Solar Photovoltaic Energy, Storage of Energy and the Integration of Energy Systems. They are also found in the recent documents A Hydrogen Strategy for a climate-neutral Europe and in the Joint Undertaking of Fuel Cells and Hydrogen.