The conversion of solar energy into fuels using water and CO2 has gained interest as a possible long-term, sustainable, and renewable source of energy. The key challenges to unlock this technology are to carry out this conversion using cheap, scalable, earth abundant materials that are highly efficient and stable for long periods of operation. The past 40 years of solar fuels research has provided fundamental insights into semiconductor and electrocatalyst physics and chemistry, and the time is ripe for developing scaled up devices and prototypes for this technology. This meeting is focused on bridging the fundamental science of solar fuels materials with up-scaling and reliability for technological development. Emphasis will be placed on fundamental understanding the semiconductor/electrocatalysts/electrolyte interfaces, especially using in-situ characterization techniques, as well as proto-type architectures for practical solar fuel devices. Finally, a technology road map for key materials and devices will be discussed to lead worldwide community to put collaborative and focuses efforts for this the most important issues in upcoming years.
- Semiconductor for photoelectrochemical Hydrogen production and CO2 conversion
- Photocatalyst for Hydrogen production and CO2 conversion
- Electrocatalysts for water splitting and CO2 reduction
- In-situ characterization of materials and interfaces
- Scale-up and architecture design of practical solar fuel devices
- Theoretical/computational methods for understanding reaction pathways
- Breaking volcano limit and scaling relationships in electro catalysis
- Membrane and Ion/gas Management in Solar Fuel
- New Concept of Hybrid Solar Fuel Device (Biointegrated/Redox Molecules Invovled)
- Economical Analysis and Strategy
Dr. Deutsch has been studying photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting since interning in Dr. John A. Turner’s lab at NREL in 1999 and 2000. He performed his graduate studies on III-V semiconductor water-splitting systems under the joint guidance of Dr. Turner and Prof. Carl A. Koval in the Chemistry Department at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Todd officially joined NREL as a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Turner’s group in August 2006 and became a staff scientist two years later. He works on identifying and characterizing appropriate materials for generating hydrogen fuel from water using sunlight as the only energy input. Recently, his work has focused on inverted metamorphic multijunction III-V semiconductors and corrosion remediation strategies for high-efficiency water-splitting photoelectrodes. Todd has been honored as an Outstanding Mentor by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science nine times in recognition of his work as an advisor to more than 30 students in the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program at NREL.
James Durrant is Professor of Photochemistry in the Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London and Ser Cymru Solar Professor, University of Swansea. His research addresses the photochemistry of new materials for solar energy conversion targeting both solar cells (photovoltaics) and solar to fuel (i.e.: artificial photosynthesis. It is based around employing transient optical and optoelectronic techniques to address materials function, and thereby elucidate design principles which enable technological development. His group is currently addressing the development and functional characterisation of organic and perovskite solar cells and photoelectrodes for solar fuel generation. More widely, he leads Imperial's Centre for Processable Electronics, founded the UK�s Solar Fuels Network and led the Welsh government funded S�r Cymru Solar initiative. He has published over 500 research papers and 5 patents, and was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
Sophia Haussener is a Professor heading the Laboratory of Renewable Energy Science and Engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). Her current research is focused on providing design guidelines for thermal, thermochemical, and photoelectrochemical energy conversion reactors through multi-physics modelling and experimentation. Her research interests include: thermal sciences, fluid dynamics, charge transfer, electro-magnetism, and thermo/electro/photochemistry in complex multi-phase media on multiple scales. She received her MSc (2007) and PhD (2010) in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Joint Center of Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) between 2011 and 2012. She has published over 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and 2 books. She has been awarded the ETH medal (2011), the Dimitris N. Chorafas Foundation award (2011), the ABB Forschungspreis (2012), the Prix Zonta (2015), the Global Change Award (2017), and the Raymond Viskanta Award (2019), and is a recipient of a Starting Grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation (2014).
Marc T.M. Koper is Professor of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He received his PhD degree (1994) from Utrecht University (The Netherlands) in the field of electrochemistry. He was an EU Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ulm (Germany) and a Fellow of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) at Eindhoven University of Technology, before moving to Leiden University in 2005. His main research interests are in fundamental aspects of electrocatalysis, proton-coupled electron transfer, theoretical electrochemistry, and electrochemical surface science.
Kevin Sivula obtained a PhD in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley in 2007. In 2011, after leading a research group in the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at EPFL, he was appointed tenure track assistant professor. He now heads the Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Optoelectronic Nanomaterials (http://limno.epfl.ch) at EPFL.