Profile of Daniel G. Nocera
2012; National Academy of Sciences; Volume: 109; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1073/pnas.1118655109
ISSN1091-6490
Autores Tópico(s)Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems
ResumoIn a dim-lit laboratory in the chemistry department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a postdoctoral researcher points out the parts of a handmade device that might be our best hope yet for harnessing solar energy. A chip the size of a microscopy slide, the device is an artificial leaf, the first of its kind made of relatively abundant and inexpensive materials that, if further refined, might help make the sun our main source of energy. The brainchild of National Academy of Sciences member and MIT chemistry professor Daniel Nocera, the leaf's stainless steel chip is coated with silicon, which can harvest sunlight, and catalysts that can use that light to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. When burned in a fuel cell, Nocera's postdoctoratal fellow Joep Pijpers explains, hydrogen generates electricity and water. The catalysts can help produce enough hydrogen from a liter of water to power an average home in the developing world. Someday, Nocera hopes, this technology might help personalize energy in the Western world, untethering its people from power grids based on energy sources that emit planet-warming gases. Daniel G. Nocera. An artificial leaf. Although he was born in Boston and returned to the city later in life, Nocera spent a childhood split between four states, as he moved with his father, who worked in retail sales. That peripatetic childhood came with a price. “When you move that much, you don't easily make friends. I became afraid to become attached to people,” he says. The anxiety of separation spurred his interest in science as a place of refuge. Armed with an amateur microscope built from an educational kit, Nocera stoked his scientific curiosity, examining creatures unearthed from his back yard. “Science seemed like an individual's pursuit, something I could carry with me no matter where we …
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