ASU’s new Energy Frontier Research Center will use the sun’s power to help minimize the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Research at the center will focus on converting water into hydrogen fuel using an artificial photosynthesis process.

“We know enough now about how photosynthesis works so that we can actually start to use that knowledge to come up with new technology,” said Devens Gust, a chemistry and biochemistry professor and the
director of the new center.

The center was given $14 million over five years by the U.S. Department of Energy.

“There was a call for proposals by the Department of Energy last year,” Gust said. “I coordinated it all and put the document together and sent it in.”

According to a press release from the White House, President Barack Obama spoke on April 27 about his plans to “reinvigorate the American scientific enterprise through a bold commitment to basic and applied research, innovation and education.”

The new center is a part of this plan. Out of 250 proposals, 46 across the country received Department of Energy funding, Gust said.

“Over the last 15 years, Arizona State has been building expertise in the area of photosynthesis and what we call artificial photosynthesis,” Gust said.

Including Gust, there are 12 principal investigators on the research project.

“It’s a project that requires the expertise of all faculty members and students involved,” Gust said.

He said that most of the government funds will be spent on hiring faculty and student personnel.

The project will focus on creating new sustainable fuels, including hydrogen.

“Our idea is to take electrons and protons from the water and to take energy from the sun and use those to make hydrogen fuel,” Gust said.

This will be accomplished by absorbing the sunlight and changing that energy into stored energy, he said.

“The next step would be to use that stored energy to get electrons out of the water and use them to make hydrogen,” Gust said.

Though the team is unsure how long it will take to transform their work into practical applications, Gust said scientific advancements are on the horizon.

“It’ll take several years before we know where it’s going to lead us,” he said.

Thomas Moore, a chemistry and biochemistry professor, is one of the project’s researchers. He and most of the other researchers are from the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis.

“The challenge for us is to take those natural processes and redirect them to do things that we need,” Moore said.

He said the overall issue is making alternative fuels more efficient.

“If you can convert your sunlight into fuel, then you can store it and burn it when you need it,” Moore said.

He said that people mainly use carbon-based fuels, which cannot continue in the long term.

“That’s unsustainable because we’re burning carbon faster than photosynthesis can replace it,” Moore said.

Anne Jones, an assistant professor in chemistry and biochemistry, is also working on the project.

“The idea is to be able to create a renewable fuel using only energy from the sun and using water as your starting material,” Jones said.

She said each person has his or her own individual contribution to the project.

“Each person in the center brings something different to the table to achieve what is arguably a very difficult goal,” Jones said.

She explained how the sun, electricity and water are all needed in the process.

“The overall idea is to harvest light to split water and create electricity,” Jones said. “Electricity will then be used to generate the fuel.”

Petra Fromme, a chemistry and biochemistry professor, said she is leading the research on the water-splitting process.

“The artificial water-splitting system provides the electrons for the production of fuels by splitting water into protons, electrons and oxygen,” Fromme said in an e-mail.

“We want to build a system for fuel production that learns from nature but has improved [the] efficiency and stability,” Fromme said.

Reach the reporter at reweaver@asu.edu.