Energy
Energy research within Chemical Engineering at Stanford is devoted to addressing critical problems of energy conversion and storage with the goal of improving efficiency and sustainability of energy technologies. Our department offers a unique environment for the development of cutting-edge materials for energy applications due to the diverse range of research approaches. One unifying theme of our energy research is the emphasis on engineering at the molecular level. Our research focuses on conversion of chemical states through nano-engineered catalysts, protein engineering for the mass production of biofuels, and development of flexible organic materials for solar energy conversion, all of which leverage molecular-level insight for the design of materials that address future energy needs.
Energy research within our department includes
- Interface engineering to improve the performance of low-cost photovoltaic cells (Bent)
- Fabrication of low-cost photovoltaic Cells (Bent)
- Discovery and design of catalysts for CO2 conversion to hydrocarbon fuels (Jaramillo)
- Design of semiconductor materials for photoelectrochemical production of hydrogen (Jaramillo)
- Development of novel electrocatalytic materials for fuel cell electrodes (Jaramillo)
- Directed evolution of hydrogenases for the efficient synthesis of hydrogen by an engineered photosynthetic organism (Swartz)
- Synthesis and fabrication of flexible organic materials for solar cell applications (Bao)
- Developing new low cost materials as alternative transparent electrode materials for solar cells (Bao)
- Metabolic engineering of E. coli for the production of fatty alcohols as biofuels (Khosla)
- Formulation of theoretical models of charge transport in polycrystalline conjugated polymer materials (Spakowitz)