US Department of Energy is awarding USD 122 million in funding to a multidisciplinary team whose project is to form an energy innovation hub and achieve breakthrough innovations in energy production. The team will be comprised of top scientists, working on developing new technologies for harnessing solar energy by converting sunlight directly into fuel.

The team will be housed under the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), led by the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), in a partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The center will bring together leading scientific minds to work on simulating the natural photosynthetic energy conversion process for practical purposes. The ultimate goal of the innovation hub is to develop an integrated solar energy-to-chemical fuel conversion system, and then advance this system to commercial scale application. In order for JCAP to achieve this, several technologies will need to be developed including light absorbers, catalysts, molecular linkers, and separation membranes.

The funding for the project will be issued in phases, the first being a USD 22 million tranche this year, with USD 25 million each of the next four years.

[source: US Department of Energy]