The CAM-IES Symposium on Photovoltaics and Thermoelectrics was held on 9 November at the Maxwell Centre with 85 attendees from academia and industry. The Symposium highlighted cutting-edge energy materials research, exploring what happens at the interfaces between the high-tech materials used to fabricate solar cells, and highlighting thermoelectrics, new types of devices designed to harvest the wasted energy that is released into the environment from cars, industrial processes, and electrical appliances. A range of experts from universities and industry gave plenary talks, as well as talks on exciting new research milestones from early career researchers. The Symposium also featured a poster session which gave students an opportunity to talk about their new research into solar cells, solid state batteries, zero carbon fuel cells, flow batteries for grid storage, and thermoelectric energy harvesting.
CAM-IES, the Centre of Advanced Materials for Integrated Energy Systems is a research network between University of Cambridge, UCL, Newcastle University, and Queen Mary University of London. CAM-IES aims to strengthen the UK community of energy materials researchers through research collaborations with industry, regular networking symposia, and running project funding calls which target high-growth areas.