On October 19th, 2012, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (California, U.S.) announced that it has broken ground on its Solar Energy Research Center (SERC).

SERC will house research laboratories and offices of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), devoted to fundamental research and technology development of a solar fuel generator. This will include methods for synthesizing new light absorbing materials, catalysts for fuel generation, separation membranes, and assembly methods to build a complete integrated system.

Fuel from sunlight

The goal is to develop prototype artificial photosystems capable of robustly producing a fuel from sunlight ten times more efficient than current crops, only using non-arable land.

"JCAP will allow us to develop the science and technology needed to create future transportation fuels from sunlight," Berkeley Lab Director Paul Alivisatos. "Our country has a real need for alternatives to the fuels we use now and we're confident our JCAP scientists will find some of those alternatives for us."

JCAP is a partnership between Berkeley Lab and Caltech as major partners, with about equal effort at both the SERC building and the Caltech site. Caltech is the JCAP lead under director Nate Lewis, with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory as a key partner.

With JCAP's goal of creating an artificial photosynthesis technology, the new SERC building will integrate under one roof fundamental discovery research with technology development.

"Shoulder to shoulder interaction between scientists discovering new components and engineers developing prototypes is the key for accelerating the pace towards a solar fuel technology," Berkeley Lab's JCAP Director Heinz Frei stated.

The three-story structure will be nearly 40,000 sq. ft. in size and will house about 75 people. The USD 54 million project is slated to be completed in late 2014. The Berkeley Lab SERC facility will also house researchers from UC Berkeley. The SERC building was designed by the SmithGroup and is being constructed by McCarthy Building Companies Inc.

2012-10-25 | Courtesy: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

Our editorial selection of breaking solar news is published at:
www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/top-solar-news.html