GOALS
The term catharsis means the conscious transformation of oneself after the passage of a traumatic situation. At CATARSIS we intend to transform how we have extracted energy from the planet’s resources after the extreme situation we have reached with Climate Change. And we will do it by observing how Nature has managed to do it in a sustainable and symbiotic way with the planet. To do this, we will have to look for new energy collection paradigms that go beyond increasing efficiency, but rather allow us to reduce losses, increasing the useful life of the product and being able to adapt to climate shocks.
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Inspired by Photosynthesis from the Molecular Level to the Nanoscale
At CATARSIS we look for a solution by observing nature, how plants transform the sun’s energy into energy and how they adapt to different climatic zones, seasons or variations in luminosity throughout the day. We will do it by observing the most efficient natural phenomenon in the transport of energy, photosynthesis. And we will do it at various scales, from the molecular scale to macro-sized devices, through control of materials at the nanometric scale. In CATARSIS we will go beyond understanding photosynthesis as a catalytic process, we will study photosynthesis as a solar device where once the energy of a photon is captured, it is transferred to the reaction center with an efficiency close to 100%. In addition, we will use synthetic biology to obtain pigments with quantum properties on demand and that form supramolecular structures similar to natural photosynthetic pigments.
SOLAR CELLS
Designing optimized materials with a response adapted to the environment
Solar cells have been designed for the collection of solar energy, but focusing primarily on materials compatible with microelectronics due to the advanced development of electronic devices. This fact has limited the emergence of new designs that can create new paradigms focused on efficient photon processing with optimal energy harvesting. In CATARSIS we will approach the problem by creating three catalogs of ultra-efficient energy capture materials using polaritons. These catalogs will help us adapt the efficiency and heat losses of the devices depending on the local irradiance associated with the different climatic zones, seasons or variations in luminosity throughout the day.
