New Funding Supports Milestone Initiative to Advance Solar Energy Research

Ph.D. graduate Stephen Meloni in the physical chemistry lab of Jessica Anna, one of the groups that will be part of the Department of Energy’s recently funded Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE).

Researchers in the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology have been awarded a Department of Energy grant focused on the production of fuels from sunlight. As a partner institution with the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE), the $40 million grant, awarded over five years, will accelerate fundamental research on solar technology in order to meet the increasing needs for clean and renewable energy sources.

Penn will join six CHASE partner institutions, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Emory University, North Carolina State University, and Yale University, in the project led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The aim of CHASE is to fill gaps in existing knowledge to allow for development of practical artificial photosynthetic systems. Building on previous accomplishments by the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, the newly funded research will also blend experiment with theory to help establish new design principles for fuels-from-sunlight systems.

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