The development of conductive and photoactive organic materials is essential for advancing sustainable energy technologies. In solar cells, these materials enable the creation of flexible, lightweight, and adaptable devices, ideal for integration with portable electronics and IoT technologies, allowing autonomous power supply for sensors and smart devices. In biosensors, they provide high sensitivity and biocompatibility for advanced medical monitoring. In photocatalysis, they facilitate the production of solar fuels, such as hydrogen and methane, using renewable sources like sunlight, water, and CO₂. Their synthesis and characterization open new opportunities for clean energy technologies, supporting the transition to a more sustainable future and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

The main research activities carried out in the group concern the design of molecular materials capable of expressing conductive properties. The interest is mainly in the development of molecular materials trying to keep synthetic procedures simple and aiming in the direction of reducing the environmental impact of synthesis by reducing the use of particularly polluting starting materials (solvents and reagents) and reducing synthetic steps. The molecular approach allows high control over the purity and properties of the materials themselves. Moreover, by going to modify the functionalization of these molecular materials it is possible to change their characteristics and allow different surface interactions with organic or aqueous environments allowing their use in different devices: solid-state solar cells or biosensors.

Organic molecular materials capable of interacting with light are being developed in the field of photoactive materials. The class of photoactive materials mainly developed are photochromic dyes that are used for special dye-sensitized solar cells to be applied as smart-windows or smart-glasses. In this application, the choice of colour in the two forms is particularly delicate and imposes a major study at the molecular design level. These materials can also act as photosensitizers in the photo(electro)catalytic processes for producing solar fuels from wastewater.

Prof. Norberto Manfredi

ORACLE Lab – U5 Building, 2nd Floor, Room 2036b
MIBSOLAR Lab – U5 Building, Ground Floor, Room T057-T067

• Fully equipped organic synthesis and characterization laboratories. 
• Clean-room labs (MIB-SOLAR and FLEXILAB) for preparation and characterization of photocatalytic and photelectrochemical devices for artificial photosynthesis and photovoltaics.