Sustainable Energy Research

The greatest teacher of sustainable materials and energy is nature (image from 1969). To really understand it, to recognise its strategies, we need to immerse ourselves in it, experience it and feel it. This curious approach to nature has shaped my life and research interests.

Sustainable energy research

Trees are not only impressive objects, they also harbour sophisticated energy technologies. Water splitting and [...]

Dye solar cells

Higher life owes its existence to the abilities of the green dye chlorophyll to convert [...]

Origin of the dye solar cell

I used this apparatus in the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics at the University of California [...]

Hydrogen as a global energy strategy

Due to its complexity, we cannot technically replicate photosynthesis. But we can at least imitate [...]

New materials for solar energy

Pyrite, the iron sulphide, is a fascinating potential material for solar energy production. It also [...]

Splitting water

The heron has long practised splitting water in this way to get the energy it [...]

Carbon dioxide fixation

Bacteria such as Leptospirillum ferrooxidans (a) grow on pyrite and break it down into nanoparticles, [...]

Self-organized electron transfer

In this rocky, rugged mountain forest at 1700 m altitude that I sometimes frequent, one [...]

Microwave Electrochemistry

Microwaves have drastically changed our way of life through telecommunications and mobile phones. If we [...]

Kinetic solar cells

Nature has developed electricity-generating solar cells in green plants for photosynthesis. They had to be [...]

Sustainable energy

This crocodile from the South Alligator River in northern Australia is the size of a [...]

Nuclear energy

I published these cartoons back in 1979. One of the monks says: “An idiotic tradition [...]