Emilio Palomares (València,1974). He studied Biology at the UVEG (1997). After graduating he joined Prof. Hermenegildo García's group at the UPV where he got his PhD (2001). In 2001 he was awarded a "Marie Curie" Fellowship ICL( London,UK). There he began his work with molecular devices for energy conversion, under the direction of Prof. James R. Durrant. In 2004 Emilio got a "Ramón y Cajal" Fellowship at the ICMol. In April 2006 he took a position at ICIQ. In 2009 he was awarded an ERC starting grant to work on quantum dots for energy conversion devices and a ERC PoC in 2015. In 2006, Prof. Palomares got the Young Chemist Award by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry and in 2010, the INNOVA 2010 Award by the SusChem Spanish Association. In 2019 he has been awarded with Energy & Environmental Solutions International Chair (E2S) by the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (UPPA). Later in 2020, September, he has been elected ICIQ Director for the next 5 years.
Research interests
Prof. Palomares has consolidated an international research group focused on using organic molecules and materials for solar cells. This effort was recognized with an ERC Starting Grant in 2009 to study the interfacial charge and energy transfer at the interface between quantum dots and semiconductor polymers. This expertise has also allowed him to work on the preparation of nanobiomolecular probes for the diagnosis of human diseases, a line of research awarded with an ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2015) and further valorized as spin-off technology. During these last years, he has also investigated perovskite-based solar cells, trying to understand the charge transfer kinetics and efficiency losses in the whole device and through the interfaces. Recently, he has extended his interest in CO2 reduction catalysis using solar energy. Furthermore, his proposal of pioneering studies of quantum coherence effects on solar cells was awarded in 2023 with an ERC Advanced Grant.
Selected publications
- Wu H, Moncusí LM, Li J, Martinez-Ferrero E, Wang P & Palomares E 2025, 'Co-Sensitized Solar Cell Achieves 13.7% Efficiency with Bis-Hexylthiophene Dyes', Advanced science, 12 - 42 - e09116.
- Curet L, Foix D, Ducos S, Billon L, Palomares E & Viterisi A 2025, 'Structure-property relationship of atomically-precise silver acetylide clusters in the electroreduction of CO2', Journal of materials chemistry a, 13 - 14 - 9791 - 9800.
- Ramón JM, Sánchez JG, Más-Montoya M, Li WH, Martínez-Ferrero E, Palomares E & Curiel D 2025, 'Revealing the Role of Spacer Length and Methoxy Substitution of Dipodal Indolocarbazole-based SAMs on the Performance of Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells', Small.
- Aranda CA, Li WH, Martínez-Ferrero E, Pistor P, Oskam G, Palomares E & Anta JA 2025, 'Insights from Impedance Spectroscopy in Perovskite Solar Cells with Self-Assembled Monolayers: Decoding SAM's Tricks', Journal of physical chemistry letters, 16 - 9 - 2301 - 2308.
- Hernández A, Sánchez JG, Ortiz J, Martínez-Ferrero E, Palomares E & Sastre-Santos A 2025, 'Tri-tert-butyl arylamine zinc phthalocyanine derivatives as p-type self-assembled molecules for efficient perovskite solar cells', Journal of materials chemistry c. 13; 15977-15987.