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My name is Annie Luo, and I am a rising senior at Brave Christian High School in Dublin, California with a passion for chemical engineering and materials science, especially sustainability research.
My interest in climate technology began when I started exploring how scientific innovations can address environmental challenges. While researching topics such as organic solar cells, carbon capture, and electrochemical carbon dioxide conversion, I realized that many promising technologies already exist. However, despite significant scientific progress, these innovations often face barriers that prevent them from reaching large-scale adoption.
This realization inspired me to create Sustainability Beyond the Lab, a platform dedicated to exploring both the science behind sustainable technologies and the challenges that limit their deployment. Through interviews with researchers, summaries of emerging technologies, and discussions of funding, manufacturing, infrastructure, and policy barriers, I hope to make sustainability research more accessible while highlighting the gap between laboratory breakthroughs and real-world implementation.
Beyond this project, I enjoy participating in science competitions, conducting independent research, and engaging with researchers working at the forefront of energy and sustainability. My goal is to pursue a career in chemical engineering or materials science and contribute to the development of technologies that can create a more sustainable future.
Thank you for visiting Sustainability Beyond the Lab. I hope this platform helps you learn more about the innovations shaping our future and the challenges that must be overcome for widespread impact.
My Organic Solar Cell Project
My Organic Solar Cell Project
In a 9 month independent research project, I built 5 proof-of-concept organic solar cells (OSC) using a PTB7 donor and ITIC acceptor active layer on an ITO glass substrate. Due to limited access to specialized fabrication equipment such as spin coaters and vacuum deposition systems as well as reflection on how scientific innovation is often constrained by the availability of equipment and the need for scalable, low-cost processing methods, I used a drop-casting method to deposit the active layer, along with PEDOT:PSS AI 4083 as the transport layer and silver conductive paint as the electrode. The device successfully produced a measurable voltage under illumination, though performance was limited by challenges such as film uniformity and interfacial contact quality due to drop-casting. This work gave me hands-on insight into the trade-offs between scalability, accessibility, and efficiency in OSC fabrication. Moving forward, I plan to investigate oxygen-induced degradation in organic solar cells, focusing on how exposure to air affects device stability over time and exploring strategies to improve long-term durability and scalability.
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