POWERING THE PLANET: A Chemical Bonding Center for the Direct Conversion of Sunlight into Chemical Fuel

通过化学键中心（CBC）第一阶段第二阶段的奖励，化学系和数学与物理科学理事会多学科活动办公室共同支持加州理工学院的Harry B. Gray的研究，他将领导加州理工学院和麻省理工学院的研究人员共同努力。这个CBC将解决21世纪最重要的科学挑战之一——以化学键的形式高效且最终经济地储存太阳能。这项研究的重点是利用阳光将水分解成能量更高的组成部分：氢和氧。该CBC旨在提供必要的基础科学，使子孙后代能够将阳光作为一种可再生和环保的能源。这项研究将对它所产生的科学领域的社会，以及它所教育的学生、专业人士和公众产生广泛的影响。国家和国际能源政策取决于这些研究的结果。提高公众对可再生能源问题重要性的认识以及解决这一问题所需的科学挑战的性质将是本次CBC的优先事项。化学键合中心旨在集中创新的合作努力，解决一个“大问题”，这将导致化学或化学与其他科学的界面的重大进展，并有可能吸引广泛的科学和公众的兴趣。

With this Chemical Bonding Center (CBC) Phase I, Step II award, the Division of Chemistry and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate jointly support the research of Harry B. Gray, of the California Institute of Technology, who will lead a collaborative effort involving researchers from Caltech and MIT. This CBC will address one of the most important scientific challenges of the 21st century - the efficient, and ultimately economical, storage of solar energy in the form of chemical bonds. The focus of this research will be on the use of sunlight to split water into its higher energy building blocks: hydrogen and oxygen. This CBC seeks to provide the basic science needed to permit future generations to use sunlight as a renewable and environmentally benign energy source. The research will have a broad impact on society in the science that it produces, and also on the students, professionals and public that it educates. National and international energy policies depend on the outcome of these studies. Raising public awareness of the importance of the renewable energy problem and the nature of the scientific challenges required to address it will be a priority of this CBC.Chemical Bonding Centers are designed to focus innovative collaborative efforts that address a "big problem" which will lead to a major advance in chemistry or at the interface of chemistry and other sciences and will have the potential to attract broad scientific and public interest.