News
Picking Apart Photosynthesis
Chemists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory believe they can now explain one of the remaining mysteries of photosynthesis, the chemical process by which plants convert sunlight into usable energy and generate the oxygen that we breathe. The finding suggests a new way of approaching the design of catalysts that drive the water-splitting reactions of artificial photosynthesis. Read More...
How to Grow an Entrepreneur:
Many new college graduates worry about getting jobs. Recent Caltech grads Cole Hershkowitz (BS '11) and Ka Suen (BS '12) don't—because they're trying a different route, working overtime as the cofounders and sole full-time staffers of Chai, a start-up marketing a mobile app that people can use to track and reduce their energy use at home. The two are among many students and young alumni taking advantage of opportunities at Caltech that prepare young entrepreneurs to succeed. Read More...
Caltech Showing the Way to Improved Water-Splitting Catalysts
Scientists and engineers around the world are working to find a way to power the planet using solar-powered fuel cells. Such green systems would split water during daylight hours, generating hydrogen that could be stored and used later to produce water and electricity. But robust catalysts are needed to drive the water-splitting reaction. Now Caltech chemists have determined the mechanism by which some highly effective cobalt catalysts work. Read More...
Caltech's Solar Toilet Wins Gates Challenge
Caltech's solar-powered toilet has won the Reinventing the Toilet Challenge issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Caltech engineer Michael Hoffmann and his colleagues were awarded $100,000 for their design, which they demonstrated at the Reinvent the Toilet Fair, a two-day event held August 14–15 in Seattle. Read More...
Chemist and Nobel Laureate Robert Grubbs's Lab Has Developed New Catalysts for Greener Chemicals.
Caltech chemists in the lab of Nobel laureate Bob Grubbs have developed a new class of catalysts that will increase the range of chemicals—from pharmaceuticals, insect pheromones, and perfume musks to advanced plastics—that can be synthesized using environmentally friendly methods. Read More...
Caltech Researchers Demonstrate a Clean Technique for Using Heat and Catalysts to Split Water into Hydrogen and Oxygen.
An experimental approach to splitting water might lead to a relatively cheap and clean method for large-scale hydrogen production that doesn't require fossil fuels. The process splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using heat and catalysts made from inexpensive materials. Read More...
Summer Construction of the SCI-Arc/Caltech Solar Decathlon House Hits High Gear
A joint team of students from Caltech and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) are working 60-plus-hour weeks this summer to complete construction of a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient house for the Solar Decathlon, a biennial competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that will be held from September 23 to October 2 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Read More...
Caltech's Michael Hoffmann Awarded Grant to Develop Solar-Powered Sanitation System
Environmental scientist and engineer Michael Hoffmann of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has received a $400,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to build a solar-powered portable toilet that could help solve a major health problem in developing countries. Read More...
Caltech's Dabiri Research Team Says Wind-turbine Placement Produces Tenfold Power Increase
The power output of wind farms can be increased by an order of magnitude--at least tenfold--simply by optimizing the placement of turbines on a given plot of land, say researchers at Caltech who have been conducting a unique field study at an experimental two-acre wind farm in northern Los Angeles County. Read More...
Resnick Institute Director and Faculty Board Members Featured in E&S Magazine
Resnick Institute Director Harry Atwater and Faculty Board Members: Frances Arnold, Mani Chandy, Harry Gray, Sossina Haile, and Nate Lewis are all featured in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of E&S. Read More...
Caltech Researchers Develop High-Performance Bulk Thermoelectrics
Caltech scientists have concocted a recipe for a thermoelectric material--one that converts heat energy into electricity--that might be able to operate off nothing more than the heat of a car's exhaust. In a paper published in Nature this month, G. Jeffrey Snyder and his colleagues reported on a compound that shows high efficiency in a temperature range of around 260 to 1160 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, the heat escaping out your car's tailpipe could be used to help power its electrical components. Read More...
Jorgensen Renovation Kicks Into Gear
Construction has begun on the Resnick Institute's headquarters. Jorgensen Hall is undergoing a complete remodel featuring the latest in sustainable design strategies. Read More...
Greening Caltech's Bottom Line
Caltech's efforts to finance urgently needed energy-efficiency upgrades—and to do so in ways that give back to the Institute—have been recognized by the Sustainable Endowments Institute in its recently released report, Greening the Bottom Line: The Trend toward Green Revolving Funds on Campus. Read More...
Solar Decathlon Back on the Mall
Thanks to a campaign led by a joint team of students from Caltech and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), the 2011 Solar Decathlon is back on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The announcement made last week reverses an earlier decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to relocate the event. Read More...
Sustaining the Next Generation of Energy Scientists
Training the next generation of scientists capable of creating startling and transformational advances in sustainable energy research is a critical component of the mission of the Resnick Institute. The first two Resnick Fellows began their work in the fall of 2010. The institute has put out a call for applications for the next set of two-year awards, which provide tuition plus a $30,000-per-year stipend for graduate students from any discipline who are seeking to explore unusual and creative sustainable-energy research projects on campus. Read More...
Professor Atwater Elected Fellow of the Materials Research Society
Harry A. Atwater, Jr., Howard Hughes Professor and Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science; and Director of Resnick Institute, has been elected a 2011 Materials Research Society (MRS) Fellow. The title of MRS Fellow honors those MRS members who are notable for their distinguished research accomplishments and their outstanding contributions to the advancement of materials research, world-wide. The maximum number of new Fellow appointments each year is limited to 0.2% of the current MRS membership. The distinction is thus highly selective.
Advances in Plasmonic Metamaterials
Resnick Institute Director Harry A. Atwater, Jr. and Purdue University colleague Alexandra Boltasseva are working to develop a new class of artificial materials called plasmonic metamaterials. These carefully engineered, nanostructured building blocks may one day be used to create ultrapowerful microscopes, advanced sensors, improved solar cells, computers that use light instead of electronic signals to process information, and even an invisibility cloak. Read More...
Obama Touts Caltech Research
In his 2011 State of the Union Address, President Obama said, "We've begun to reinvent our energy policy. We're not just handing out money. We're issuing a challenge. We're telling America's scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo projects of our time. At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way toturn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they're using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015."
Watch the Speech...
New Reactor Paves the Way for Efficiently Producing Fuel from Sunlight
Sossina Haile, Professor of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, and colleagues have built a reactor at the heart of which is a cylindrical lining of ceria—a metal oxide. The reactor takes advantage of ceria's ability to "exhale" oxygen from its crystalline framework at very high temperatures and then "inhale" oxygen back in at lower temperatures. Ultimately, Haile says, the process could be adopted in large-scale energy plants, allowing solar-derived power to be reliably available during the day and night. Read More...
Professor Arnold Wins Draper Prize
Frances Arnold, Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, is a co-recipient of the Charles Stark Draper Prize by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Professor Arnold has recieved the Draper Prize, which is the highest honor in the engineering profession, for a method called directed evolution, used worldwide to guide the creation of certain properties in proteins and cells, allowing the engineering of novel enzymes and biocatalytic processes for pharmaceutical and chemical products. Read More...
Our "Sputnik Moment"
The quest for clean energy, and our country's competitiveness both now and in the future is, according to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, our "Sputnik Moment." "From wind power to nuclear reactors to high-speed rail," Chu noted in a speech to the National Press Club on November 29, "China and other countries are moving aggressively to capture the lead. Given that challenge, and given the enormous economic opportunities in clean energy, it's time for America to do what we do best: innovate." Read More...
2010 Breakthrough Award
Harry A. Atwater, Jr., Howard Hughes Professor and Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, along with colleagues Nate Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor and Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Michael Kelzenberg are recipients of a 2010 Breakthrough Award by Popular Mechanics for their work on flexible solar cells. Read More...
Caltech Engineer Named MacArthur Fellow
John O. Dabiri, a fluid-dynamics expert at Caltech whose studies of schooling fish have inspired new ideas for wind farming, was named a MacArthur Fellow, and awarded a five-year, $500,000 "no strings attached" grant. Each year, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awards the unrestricted fellowships to individuals who show "exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future," according to the Foundation's website. Read More...
Caltech-led Team Gets up to $122 Million for Energy Innovation Hub
A $122 million Energy Innovation Hub, aimed at developing revolutionary methods to generate fuels directly from sunlight, is to be directed by Nate Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry. Other members of the leadership team are Harry A. Atwater, Jr., Howard Hughes Professor and Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, and Director of the Resnick Institute; and Bruce S. Brunschwig, Director of the Beckman Institute Molecular Materials Resource Center. Read More...
Professor Nate Lewis featured in a special Discovery Channel series called, Powering the Future, about the future of clean energy
Nate Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry, was featured in a special series about the future of clean energy, which aired July 17 and 18, 2010 on the Discovery Channel. The four-part series, called Powering the Future, examines new sources of energy and the attempts to create a clean, abundant, and secure supply of energy. Lewis, a leading energy investigator in the United States, focuses on applications of electrochemistry and photoelectrochemistry to present-day issues in energy and chemical sensing. The series aired for two hours on July 17 and July 18, beginning on Saturday at 8 p.m. (ET/PT) and concluding on Sunday at 8 p.m. (ET/PT). Lewis was featured in the second part of Saturday's program, called "The Energy Planet." Read More...
Caltech and SCI-Arc Students to Build a Green House Near the White House
Students from Caltech and the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) have been chosen to build a green house near the White House. They will compete against teams from around the world in the biennial Solar Decathlon, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Taking place in October 2011 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the two-week event will challenge teams of university students to design and build the most affordable, attractive, and energy-efficient house they can. Read More...
The Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Nanoscience is Awarded to Professor Harry Atwater
The Materials Research Society awarded Atwater at their annual Spring Meeting. His lecture was entitled "Bending Light to Our Will: Nanophotonic Structures for Terawatt-Scale Solar Energy Conversion." Read More...
Caltech Researchers Create Highly Absorbing, Flexible Solar Cells with Silicon Wire Arrays
Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from Caltech has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells.
"These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials," says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science, and director of Caltech's Resnick Sustainability Institute, which focuses on sustainability research. Read More...
Caltech and Dow Chemical Team Up in Solar Materials Effort
Caltech and the Dow Chemical Company have announced a new solar-research collaboration aimed at developing the use of semiconductor materials that are less expensive and more abundant than those used in many of today's solar cells.
In addition, they announced the creation of the Dow Chemical Company Graduate Fellowship in Chemical Sciences and Engineering. Read More...
Announcement of Resnick Gift
As the U.S. Secretary of Energy and hundreds of graduates and their families looked on, Caltech president Jean-Lou Chameau began the June 2009 commencement ceremony by announcing $30 million in gifts as the first phase of a proposed $90 million initiative for a new institute.
The gifts and future fundraising will support the new Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech. The initial gift of $20 million was made by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, and an additional $10 million came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Matching Program. Ultimately, the endowment for the new institute will exceed $90 million. Read More...