Scuola di Scienze della Natura

Energy production, harvesting, storage, use and saving represent crucial issues for the development of sustainable economies and societies. The development of advanced materials along with their relevant technologies plays an important role in implementing effective solutions for these challenges. The present course is intended to face these problems by presenting the properties of a few classes of materials that are playing an increasing role in the life cycle of energy. Among them, metallic low temperature superconductors as well as high-temperature superconducting oxides will be discussed from the point of view of their structure, properties, governing physics, main applications, economical opportunities and limits of their performances.

Moreover, materials for energy storage, energy harvesting and batteries will be discussed with special attention to hydrogen storage materials and thermoelectric materials. Principles for energy storage, energy harvesting and batteries will be described together with the strategies for the development of materials suitable for the applications.