HERMES- High-Efficiency and Resilient Materials for Energy Systems

HERMES delivers materials solutions addressing critical needs to improve photovoltaic performance, durability, and reliability under Qatar’s harsh desert conditions. In the Energy domain, HERMES advances photovoltaic performance beyond conventional silicon technologies through two complementary directions. First, it develops advanced PV materials and device architectures, including nanophotonic light-management structures and earth-abundant absorbers such as CZTSSe, to enhance absorption and reduce optical losses. Second, it explores rectenna-enabled solar harvesting concepts based on nanosheet rectifiers and nanoantenna architectures that extend solar energy conversion toward underutilized spectral regions, particularly in the infrared. A second pillar focuses on desert-resilient module engineering and surface protection, addressing the dominant causes of PV performance loss in Qatar: dust deposition, abrasion, UV exposure, humidity, and high temperatures. HERMES develops optimized PV module Bill of Materials (BoM) architectures validated through mini-module prototyping, accelerated aging, outdoor exposure, and degradation diagnostics. In parallel, the project engineers' anti-dust and anti-reflective optical surface materials tailored to Qatar’s airborne dust conditions, while ensuring compatibility with robotic cleaning strategies. HERMES establishes a materials-to-deployment workflow linking advanced photovoltaic materials, desert durability engineering, and environmental intelligence, ensuring that laboratory innovations translate into reliable and deployable solar technologies for extreme climates.

Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)