The UAB Casa de Convalescència was the chosen venue for the HORATES Midterm Meeting & International School on Thermoelectric Characterization, a weeklong event that included a meeting of many of the projects’ partners, a school on the thermal properties of materials with talks by many professionals in the field, and a Hands on Workshop on presentation skills.

Casa de Convalescència. | ICMAB

15 young scientists are conducting research for their PhD projects in the context of HORATES, a European MSCA ITN (Innovative Training Networks) project that focuses on the development of organic materials suitable for converting unused waste heat into electricity.

Researchers are searching for greater mechanical flexibility and low thermal conductivity, properties that make organic materials potentially more efficient performers than conventional inorganic materials. While these materials are still far from being ready to hit the market, this project is working through the full chain of organic thermoelectrics, from molecular design and chemical synthesis to device development, and even theoretical modelling, to get it one step closer.

REA project officer Giulia Moro introducing the meeting. | ICMAB

The General Meeting was introduced by REA project officer Giulia Moro and programme’s spokesperson Martijn Kemerink, from the Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg, Germany.

After the introduction came a Tour de table where all scientists-in-charge presented their research team and their role within the project. After a brief coordinator’s report, the 15 funded fellows introduced themselves and explained their background and current research focus within HORATES. This meeting represented one of their first opportunities to meet each other and learn more about who they are working with in this project.

From left to right: Sebastián Reparaz, Mariano Campoy-Quiles, Jiali Guo (PhD fellow), Riccardo Rurali and Paolo Floris (PhD fellow) | ICMAB

From ICMAB, the two PhD fellows of the HORATES project are Paolo Floris, with IP Riccardo Rurali (Electronic Structure of Materials group), and Jiali Guo, with IPs Sebastián Reparaz and Mariano Campoy-Quiles (NANOPTO group). 

PhD Researcher Irene Brunetti. | ICMAB

After the General Meeting, the HORATES School on Thermoelectric Characterization began, with talks by many speakers that approached the topic from different points of view.

From ICMAB, we had ICREA Professor Kasper Moth-Poulsen, who gave a talk on Thermal Energy Storage, Sebastián Reparaz, from the Nanostructured Materials for Optoelectronics and Energy Harvesting (NANOPTO) Group, who gave a talk on the methods to determine the anisotropy thermal conductivity, and Mariano Campoy-Quiles, also from NANOPTO, who gave a talk on the ethics on publishing.

ICMAB Researcher Sebastian Reparaz. | ICMAB

At the end of the week, the PhD researchers attended a hands on Workshop to help them improve their presentation skills to give them more tools to successfully share the results of their research.

More information

• HORATES Website
• New MSCA-ITN International Doctoral Programme on Thermoelectrics with the participation of the ICMAB
• Two PhD positions on "Hybrid and Organic Thermoelectrics" within a MSCA ITN at ICMAB