Additive manufacturing of energy materials and devices for visible light harvesting

In recent years, additive manufacturing has become an emerging technology that offers near-complete freedom of design, allowing for complex 3D parts to be readily fabricated. In principle, this enables the implementation of additive manufacturing in a wide-range of applications. However, its application in photochemistry and solar energy harvesting remains, thus far, an uncharted territory. In this work, the versatility in the design and function of 3D printed fluidic devices specifically tailored towards photochemical processes is explored. These reactors have proven to be successful in their implementation in both heterogeneous and homogeneous photosensitisation reactions. The incorporation of a photoactive benzothiadiazole-based photosensitiser into a commercially available 3D printing resin was investigated, and the resulting bespoke resin was successfully used to fabricate photoactive reactionware. The resulting reactionware can act as photosensitisers for the generation of singlet oxygen upon visible light irradiation (420 nm). These 3D printed photosensitising structure were also demonstrated to be highly effective in the degradation of a well-known wastewater contaminant, bisphenol A, under the same visible light irradiation. Due to a great degree of freedom associated with the design of the 3D printed flow devices, it was used for fabrication of monoliths with complex geometries, which showed activity in singlet oxygen generation. Finally, a resin formulation was developed to 3D print photosensitizing structures which are resistant to harsh organic solvents.