CHASE Hub Research Featured by BBC News
The CHASE Hub was featured by BBC News in an article entitled “Creating fuel from thin air with artificial leaves.”
The BBC describes CHASE plans to develop molecule/material hybrid photoelectrodes for cooperative sunlight-driven generation of liquid fuels from carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water. The article features an interview with CHASE Deputy Director Jillian Dempsey who describes our focus on cascade catalysis and explains that “Turning carbon dioxide into a usable fuel involves making more than one chemical transformation – and catalysts can handle only one at a time. The first one does the first step, and then passes its product off to the next catalyst. Each one would be operating a very highly selective process, and handing off after that individual step to the partner down the road.” Professor Dempsey goes on to explain the complexity of building an integrated system. “There’s been some incredible science in terms of light harvesting, in terms of the catalysis that makes the fuel and in terms of managing systems,” she says. “But the integration of these individual components into a system capable of artificial photosynthesis is a huge challenge.”
The article also features research on artificial photosynthesis by Edwin Reisner at Cambridge University and describes the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA) funded along with CHASE in 2020 by DOE BES as an Energy Innovation Hub.
