Can solar power deliver?

Scientific Attaché at the Italian Embassy in London since March 2005. Full Professor of Physics at the University of Sassari, Italy. He worked since 1971 as a High Energy physicist, carrying out research and leading experimental teams at the largest particle accelerator laboratories in Europe (CERN) and in the US (Fermilab, SSC). The main achievements of this activity included the discovery of the raising proton-proton cross-section, the measure of the charmed mesons’ lifetimes, and the discovery of the top quark in 1997. Since 1993 he has also worked in the field of applications of High Energy Physics technologies to Bio-medicine (in particular, innovative techniques for PET and Computed Tomography, for data handling, for image processing). He has been promoter and manager of several national and European projects, including the industrial development of a solid-state high-resolution mammography unit, the application of physics simulation methods to economics, the creation of Grid-enabled medical-knowledge databases for research and healthcare (FP5 project MammoGrid). Between 2001 and 2004 he led the Promotion Section of the Technology Transfer Group of CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) in Geneva, during which time he followed the transfer of technologies in the fields of solar energy exploitation, isotope production for medical applications, Hadron Therapy and advanced detector design. He has published 200+ peer-reviewed papers in his career. Under his leadership the Science Office of the Italian Embassy has organized several conferences dealing among the rest with energy production technologies, climate change issues, solar power exploitation, development of technologies for Medicine, health care strategy, food chain’s sustainability, biodiversity, eco-building. These conferences are promoted in collaboration with government bodies, research institutes, universities and industries of Italy and the UK, with the participation of representatives from other Countries.  In 2009 Professor Amendolia has been elected Chairman of the London Diplomatic Science Club, gathering together the Science Officers of all the diplomatic missions in London. Since 2006 he is Honorary Visiting Professor at the City University of London.

Richard Friend holds the Cavendish Professorship of Physics at the University of Cambridge. His research encompasses the physics, materials science and engineering of carbon-based semiconductors, particularly polymers. His research advances have shown that these have significant applications in LEDs, solar cells and FETs. These findings have been important both for fundamental science, because they reveal new regimes and models for semiconductor behaviour, and for real applications that have been developed and exploited through a number of university spin-off companies. The first of these, Cambridge Display Technology, now part of the Sumitomo Chemical Company, developed fully printable organic LEDs for use in high resolution displays that are now commercialized and used in current OLED displays. His current research interests are directed to novel schemes – including ideas inspired by recent insights into Nature’s light harvesting – that seek to understand and improve the performance and cost of solar cells. 

Professor Can Li received his PhD degree in 1988 from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. He was then a Post-doc fellow and visiting professor at Northwestern University (USA),The University of Liverpool (UK), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan) and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI (France). He became a full professor in Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in 1993.  He was awarded a JSPS Honorary Professor Fellowship in 2001.He has been elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2003, member of the Academy of Sciences for Developing World (TWAS) in 2005, and Royal Chemical Society Fellow in 2005, foreign member of Academia Europaea in 2008. He has been director of State Key Laboratory of Catalysis since 1998; Director of Dalian National Laboratory for Clean since 2011.

He is President of the International Association of Catalysis Societies since 2008; on the editor boards of more than 15 academic journals. Can Li is the invited professor of Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, France and honorary professor of the University of Queensland, Australia. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers with over 5000 citations, granted 25 patents and delivered more than 70 invited and plenary lectures. Under his supervision, 50 obtained their PhD degrees. Among the prestigious awards he received are the “International Catalysis Award”, Hong Kong “Qiu-Shi Outstanding Young Scientist Award”, “HoLeungHoLee Prize”, and “National Award for Outstanding Young Scientists in China”.