Conference Description
The Renewable Energy: Solar Fuels GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.
Capture, conversion, and storage of solar energy in the form of chemical feedstocks has enormous potential to revolutionize the energy sector. Achievements in artificial photosynthesis will disrupt our global energy portfolio and reduce our dependence on fossil fuel resources, and in turn, mitigate CO2 emissions. Great progress has been made in this field since the first Gordon Research Conference in this series “Renewable Energy: Solar Fuels” in 2007, both in fundamental and applied research, but the potential of artificial photosynthesis is far from realized. The 2024 GRC will explore recent frontier advances in this field, with a focus on key scientific issues related to efficient solar to chemical energy conversion. The state of the art in designing efficient light absorbers, catalysts, integrated systems, will be featured, along with advances in mechanistic understanding of the science behind all these components.
The conference will provide a venue for both emerging and established investigators to explore these themes in a collegial and engaging scientific environment. Participants, including students and postdocs, are encouraged to present their results in poster sessions, with some posters selected for short talks. This conference, with programmed discussion sessions and informal gatherings in the afternoons and evenings, provides a unique international forum in which the academic and industrial scientists can exchange ideas to advance the field of renewable energy.
The topics, speakers, and discussion leaders for the conference sessions are displayed below. The conference chair is currently developing their detailed program, which will include the complete meeting schedule, as well as the talk titles for all speakers. The detailed program will be available by October 7, 2023. Please check back for updates.
Solar Fuels Systems
Discussion Leaders
-
CX Xiang (California Institute of Technology, United States)
Speakers
-
Hailiang Wang (Yale University, United States)
-
Kevin Sivula (EPFL, Switzerland)
-
Kara Bren (University of Rochester, United States)
Photon Capture & Charge Separation
Discussion Leaders
-
Jorge Colón (University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico)
Speakers
-
Emily Warren (NREL, United States)
-
James Cahoon (Department of Chemistry, UNC Chapel Hill, United States)
-
Fengtao Fan (Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
-
Mita Dasog (Dalhousie University, Canada)
Advances in Spectroscopy
Discussion Leaders
-
Ryan Hadt (California Institute of Technology, United States)
Speakers
-
David Grills (Brookhaven National Laboratory, United States)
-
James Durrant (Imperial College London, United Kingdom)
-
Justin Sambur (Colorado State University, United States)
Integration of Catalysts & Light Absorbers for Fuel Production
Discussion Leaders
-
Nathan Neale (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, United States)
Speakers
-
Claudia Turro (The Ohio State University, United States)
-
Susumu Saito (Integrated Research Consortium on Chemical Sciences, Japan)
-
Michael Rose (University of Texas at Austin, United States)
Membrane Science
Discussion Leaders
-
Steven Holdcroft (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Speakers
-
Shane Ardo (University of California, Irvine, United States)
-
Shannon Boettcher (University of Oregon, United States)
-
Alex Cowan (University of Liverpool, United Kingdom)
Fuel Production in Interfacial Microenvironments
Discussion Leaders
-
Eva Nichols (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Speakers
-
Zhichuan J. Xu (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
-
Sharon Hammes-Schiffer (Yale University, United States)
-
Sara Thoi (Johns Hopkins University, United States)
Cascade Transformations to Achieve Energy Dense Fuels
Discussion Leaders
-
Kate Waldie (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, United States)
Speakers
-
Javier Concepcion (Brookhaven National Lab, United States)
-
Joel Ager (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States)
-
Daniel Nocera (Harvard University, United States)
Operando Studies
Discussion Leaders
-
Walter Drisdell (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States)
Speakers
-
Wilson Smith (University of Colorado Boulder and National Renewable Energy Lab, United States)
-
Amy Cordones-Hahn (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, United States)
-
Greta Ricarda Patzke (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
-
Shu Hu (Yale University, United States)
International Consortia to Accelerate Solar Fuels Innovation
Discussion Leaders
-
Hongxian Han (Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
Speakers
-
Ann Magnuson (Uppsala University, Sweden)
-
Philippe Schild (European Commission - DG R&I, Belgium)
The GRC Power Hour™
Organizers
-
Nancy Gray (Gordon Research Conferences, United States)