 Research Highlights
Good Day Sun Power, Goodbye Fossil Fuels…
 hat’s what researchers in chemistry and biochemistry are striving to make a reality. Many alumni have requested an update on renewable energy research in the department. Recently a team led by John Kouvetakis as well as Andrew Chizmeshya and Jose Menendez of physics was awarded a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar America Initiative for basic research into new solar cell materials that could lead to efficiency gains and lower costs for the technology.
These new multidisciplinary research initiatives are also supported by the Science Foundation Arizona (small business catalytic fund) and National Science Foundation (phase I and II small business technology transfer awards-STTR). Novel materials synthesis, device fabrication, advanced spectroscopic characterization and state-of-the-art supercomputer simulations are being synergistically combined to promote innovation in future generation of photovoltaic and solid state lighting. The DOE project will utilize materials that have been developed at ASU for laser applications and explore their photovoltaic potential. The project will focus on high efficiency, multi-junction based devices produced on Si platforms for a dramatic cost reduction compared to current technologies. New material combinations will feature enhanced absorption of sunlight by perfectly matching the solar energy spectrum. The SFAZ funded technology uses a buffer layer system invented at ASU to structurally match silicon wafers with nitride-based materials to produce renewable energy systems. The NSF funded projects are in collaboration with Voltaix Corporation/Si-Photonics and include scaleable industrial syntheses of new families of molecular compounds and their use to form materials for applications in advanced substrates for strained Si channels, CMOS-integrated MEMS and solar cells.
“The materials we are using have been developed at ASU over the past five years for silicon-based photonic devices,” Kouvetakis says. “The application of these materials in photovoltaics is an extension of our previous work.” Kouvetakis adds that the goal of the project is to advance silicon-based solar cells, which account for 90 percent of all commercial solar devices, and to use materials the researchers are familiar with from their semiconductor work.
DOE also awarded chemistry and biochemistry’s Ian Gould and Dmitry Matyushov a Basic Energy Sciences grant for a solar energy project six months ago.
Other Renewable and Alternative Energy Research in the department Includes:
Solar energy and photosynthesis
Artificial photosynthesis, the use of the basic chemistry of the natural photosynthetic process is being investigated for the preparation of fuels such as hydrogen gas, and electricity. Professors Devens Gust, Thomas A. Moore, and Ana Moore, from the new Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, have been funded for solar energy research projects by the U. S. Department of Energy for over 20 years. Their projects are supported by three research grants that involve the development of artificial photosynthesis for technological solar energy production. In one project, hydrogen production using natural hydrogen-evolving enzymes in concert with artificial systems is being studied in collaboration with researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In another, electricity production is being investigated using a new type of organic solar cell. Finally, artificial analogs of the methods biology uses to protect the photosynthetic apparatus of plants from damage due to excess sunlight are being studied in collaboration with scientists at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories.
Protic Ionic liquids and fuel cells
ionic liquids, that can be as simple as molten ammonium nitrate + ammonium bisulfate mixtures (better known as fertilizers), can make excellent fuel cell electrolytes, it seems. Austen Angell, a professor in the department, has had several years of Department of Defense funding, joint with fuel cell expert Don Gervasio of Biodesign, to exploit their discovery that these liquids can make efficient fuel cell electrolytes for medium temperature power units. These promise to free us from dependence on the noble metal catalysts that make most fuel cells so expensive.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and fuel cells
Professors Jeff Yarger and Dan Buttry are funded by the Department of Energy to examine the use of metal nanoparticles in fuel cells and to develop Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) methods to characterize the nanoparticles.
Amino Acids and electron transfer
The National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy have funded Associate Professor Kevin Redding, a new hire in the department, to investigate a very specific part of the complicated photosynthetic process. Photosystem 1 (PS1) is a multi-subunit membrane protein complex that uses the energy of absorbed photons (light particles) to promote transmembrane electron transfer. In the DOE component Redding is changing the amino acid residues on PS1 in order to understand how the protein is better able to “tune” the properties of another molecule so that it functions as a good intermediate in electron transfer and energy production.
Microbial biofuel
Neal Woodbury, along with Vermaas and Rittmann (both of the Biodesign Institute) will use bacteria to make biodiesel fuels. These photosynthetic bacteria contain lipids (fats) that can be converted directly to high-energy fuels. The lack of competition with food production, along with the higher yield per acre than plant-based biofuel, gives the bacteria-based system the potential to replace fossil fuels in a major way, something other biofuels cannot accomplish given the land mass required and growing cycles.
Hydrogen catalysts
A group of ASU researchers led by Neal Woodbury is exploring new ways to efficiently convert water into hydrogen. The project, part of President Bush’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, addresses the technical and economic challenges in developing renewable and distributed hydrogen production technologies.
Energy from biocatalysts
Industrial catalysts for the production of hydrogen utilize expensive, precious metal-based catalysts. However, biology catalyzes the same reaction using the base metals nickel and iron. This project, overseen by the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department’s Assistant Professor Anne Jones is creating artificial, bio-inspired, metal site harboring, hydrogen production catalysts based on [FeFe]-hydrogenases. The goals are both to create viable, inexpensive hydrogen production catalysts, and to understand the mechanism of catalysis in these enigmatic organometallic enzymes. This research is funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. |
