AAL_27_Alumni AudioLab with Anies Mutiari

The dream of becoming a chemical engineer was actually that of her father, who due to his color blindness cannot live it himself. Anies Mutiari from Indonesia lives it for him. She started her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering when she was just 18 years old. Right after finishing it she was recruited by the Ministry of Industry, Center of Material and Technical Product - like many young researcher in Indonesia. Due to the limited number of places, she waited 4 years before starting her master’s degree - with a focus on biogas purification. Renewable energies have been with her from the beginning of her studies until today, up to her PhD studies about photovoltaic, which she is currently completing at the Vienna University of Technology and the Austrian Institute of Technology.

There she conducts research on carrier inks and mineral compositions for second-generation photovoltaic systems. Namely those whose solar cells no longer consist of centimeter-thick mineral layers, but move in the microscopic range - liquid enriched with the mineral kesterite is applied to a carrier medium such as glass. Kesterite consists of non-toxic minerals such as Copper and zinc.

Renewable energies have arrived in Indonesia but on a very small scale - only a few percent of the total power supply comes from renewable energy sources, with hydropower and geothermal energy still being pioneers. The extent to which photovoltaics can play a greater role here is not yet predictable, not even for Anies Mutiari as she states in this podcast.