Meeting Description

Renewable energy is attracting extensive attention as a result of pervasive concerns about global sustainability and global climate change due to fossil fuel consumption, and solar energy conversion, either to biofuels or through artificial photosynthesis, is a central area of research in renewable energy. The increased focus on solar energy is due in large part to its abundance and wide availability - more energy from sunlight strikes the earth in an hour than all the energy consumed by humans in a year. However, solar energy is both diffuse and intermittent. Thus, large area collection schemes that are still cost-effective must be developed and deployed, and robust mechanisms of energy storage must be designed. Fuels are preferable to electrical forms of storage due to their high energy density and ease of transportation. Thus, development of low-cost, efficient, and scalable schemes for solar energy capture and conversion into fuel will be vital to both future energy supply and global sustainability.

This Gordon Research Seminar will complement the GRC conference on Solar Fuels. This meeting will feature oral and poster presentations by graduate students and postdoctoral scholars currently working in the fields of solar energy capture and conversion, photoelectrochemistry, and catalysis. Two major aspects of solar fuel production will be addressed. The first session will address the capture of solar photons as electrons and holes and their efficient collection. The second session will address the challenges associated with driving multi-electron chemical transformations to produce fuels. This meeting represents an unprecedented opportunity for emerging scientists to discuss and present their own cutting-edge research in solar fuels and to network with the future experts in the field.