Center for Bio-Inspired Solar Fuel Production | An Energy Frontier Research Center Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy

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Mission

The need for a continuous energy supply and energy requirements for transportation necessitates technology for storage of energy from sunlight in fuel, as well as conversion to electricity. Cost-effective technologies for solar fuel production do not exist, prompting the need for new fundamental science.

Bisfuel featured in Frontiers in Energy Research

Research of the Bisfuel Center is highlighted in the issues of the EFRC newsletter, Frontiers in Energy Research:

October 2012 issue of the newsletter features an article "Copying Nature's Radical Fuel Production" about recent research successes of the groups of Devens Gust, Tom Moore and Ana Moore to mimick the essential redox players of the natural photosynthetic water splitting mechanism. The team has succeeded in designing a solar water splitting device that produce oxygen and hydrogen gas from water.

In January 2012 issue of the EFRC newsletter under Research Highlight section read an article "Maximizing Solar Fuel Production" about research in our center. Researchers at the Center for Bio-Inspired Solar Fuel Production have successfully incorporated DNA-based nanocages into the pores of a transparent metal oxide material that conducts electricity while allowing sunlight to pass through it. The team is now significantly closer to constructing a transparent electrode with integrated catalysts, which is fundamental to developing a bio-inspired artificial solar fuel system.

Upcoming Bisfuel events

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Bisfuel Seminar

Candice Chan, Materials Science and Engineering School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, will present a talk "New Approaches to Sustainable and Active Semiconductor Solar Energy Conversion Materials for Solar-to-Fuel Generation"

Biodesign Auditorium at 4 pm

Recent publications

Dutta, A., Flores, M., Roy, S., Schmitt, J., Hamilton, G. A., Hartnett, H., Shearer, J., and Jones, A. (2013) Sequential Oxidations of Thiolates and the Cobalt Metallocenter in a Synthetic Metallopeptide: Implications for the Biosynthesis of Nitrile Hydratase, Inorganic Chemistry, 52 (9), 5236-5245 (Read online)
Garg, V., Kodis, G., Liddell, P., Terazono, Y., Moore, T., Moore, A., and Gust, D. (2013) Artificial Photosynthetic Reaction Center with a Coumarin-Based Antenna System, Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Published online March 27, 2013, (Read online)
Flory, J.D., Shinde, S., Lin, S., Liu, Y., Yan, H., Ghirlanda, G., and Fromme, P. (2013) PNA-peptide Assembly in a 3D DNA Nanocage at Room Temperature, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 135 (18), 6985-6993 (Read online)
Brennan, B.J., Arero, J., Liddell, P.A., Moore, T.A., Moore, A.L., and Gust, D. (2013) Selective oxidative synthesis of meso-beta fused porphyrin dimers, Journal of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines, in press, (Read online)
Sherman, B.D., Vaughn, M.D., Bergkamp, J.J., Gust, D., Moore, A.L., Moore, T.A. (2013) Evolution of reaction center mimics to systems capable of generating solar fuel, Photosynthesis Research, Published online Feb 11, 2013, (Read online)
Rendek, K.N., Fromme, R., Grotjohann, I., Fromme, P. (2013) Crystallization of a self-assembled three-dimensional DNA nanostructure, Acta Crystallogr. Sect. F, F69, 141-146 (Read online)
Jones, A.K., McIntosh, C.L., Dutta, A., Kwan, P., Roy, S., Yang, S. (2013) Bioelectrocatalysis of hydrogen oxidation/production by hydrogenases, In: Enzymatic fuel cells: From fundamentals to applications. Edited by H. Luckarift, G. Johnson and P. Attanasov, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, in press, (Read online)

2012 Departmental Awards

The 2012 Departmental awards ceremony has been held on April 10th, 2012. This year undergraduate and graduate students affiliated with EFRC have harvested a good load of awards:

ASU EFRC Leadership and staff congratulates Departmental award recipients, their mentors, and all personnel who contributed to the success!

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Research news

2013-02-01

Towards a Design of a Complete Solar Water Splitting System

A team of Bisfuel researchers led by Devens Gust, Ana Moore and Tom Moore has designed and characterized an artificial photosynthetic reaction center inspired by natural Photosystem II and comprising a highly oxidizing porphyrin linked to a biomimetic electron transfer relay and a porphyrin electron acceptor. Two articles with the results of the study have appeared in September special issue of PNAS “Chemical Approaches to Artificial Photosynthesis: Solar Fuels Special Feature”

2013-01-24

Hydrogenase mimic produces hydrogen under the light

Researchers from the laboratory of Giovanna Ghirlanda working on Subtask 3 (Fuel Production Complex) have achieved the synthesis of a peptide-based hydrogenase mimic that is capable of photoinduced hydrogen production. Results of the study have been published in the October 11, 2012, issue of Chemical Communications and the article has been featured on the cover of that issue.

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