Event
Vagelos Institute Lecture in Energy Science and Technology
Dr. Jillian Dempsey, University of North Carolina
"Driving the Production of Chemical Fuels from Sunlight"
The power accessible from one hour of sunlight hitting our earth’s surface is more than our annual global energy consumption. To effectively harness the energy of the sun as a sustainable resource, we must not only find a way to capture this diffuse energy source, but develop new technologies to store this energy. Using solar photons to drive energy intensive reactions that take energy-poor feedstocks like water and carbon dioxide and generate energy-rich fuels offers a promising solution, akin to photosynthesis. However, efficient solar fuel production outside of a green leaf has yet to be achieved. To address the challenges limiting the development of artificial photosynthesis-based technologies, my research lab is learning (1) how to exploit energy-efficient proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) processes for fuel production schemes and (2) how to integrate fuel-producing catalysts with photon capturing materials. Through this work, new approaches to efficiently convert solar photons into chemical energy are being developed.