Solar energy technologies have gained significant global attention as crucial facilitators for the green and sustainable development of human society and the economy. Organic materials hold great potential in solar energy conversion due to their advantages such as diverse molecular modification, pollution-free nature, low cost, solution processing, and flexible device fabrication. Our research focuses on developing new organometallic materials and investigating their performance in solar cells, solar evaporators and photocatalysis. Iridium and platinum-based molecules with high singlet-to-triplet conversion are explored to improve the exciton lifetime and diffusion length, while also optimizing the active layer morphology to enhance the efficiency of organic solar cells. Additionally, a new strategy is adopted that integrates multiple charge transfer mechanisms, including metal-to-ligand, ligand-to-metal, ligand-to-ligand, and intermolecular charge transfers, into an organometallic polymer. This approach aims to design highly efficient photothermal materials for solar evaporation applications. Interestingly, various organometallic 1D and 2D polymers also hold great promise as efficient photocatalysts in converting water to various useful chemicals. Hence, the development of new organometallic materials opens a meaningful pathway from molecular design to improving the solar energy conversion efficiency of photo-to-electric, photo-to-thermal and photo-to-chemical processes.

黄维扬，现为香港理工大学理学院院长、应用生物及化学科技学系讲座教授和欧雪明能源教授。1995年获香港大学博士学位；1996至1997分别于美国德州农工大学和英国剑桥大学从事博士后研究。现为香港化学会主席；曾任Journal of Materials Chemistry C副主编（2013-2022），现任Topics in Current Chemistry主编和Energy Advances 副主编。长期专注于无机化学中金属有机聚合物/配合物的设计、合成及其光电应用等领域的基础与应用研究。H-索引指数为99，获英国皇家化学会会士、英国皇家化学会过渡金属化学奖(首位华人)、国家教育部高校自然科学奖一等奖（排名第一）、亚洲化学会联合会杰出年青化学家奖、何梁何利基金科学与技术创新奖、国家自然科学奖二等奖（排名第一）、香港研资局高级研究学者奖、国家教育部长江学者讲座教授、欧洲科学院外籍院士和香港科学院院士等奖项或称号。