Stuart Licht of the University of Massachusetts Boston will speak on March 6 at 2 p.m. (Location: Kim Building Lecture Hall).

Abstract
Society faces critical challenges in the transition to a sustainable energy future. We are at a critical juncture, providing unprecedented opportunities, in which society, government, and industry are aware that the burning of fossil fuels is causing global upheaval, and innovative, transformative science and technologies are needed. The exploration and scale-up of unusual, efficient chemical energy processes will provide one bridge to this future. Two examples from our ongoing projects, one in the efficient utilization of solar energy to generate hydrogen fuel, and one in electrochemical storage of energy will be presented. An odyssey, from photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion (1a) to our present new solar process to generate hydrogen fuel using concentrated sunlight, (1b) will be presented. The development of green, high energy batteries and fuel cells using new redox storage processes (2) will also be described.

(1a) "A Description of Energy Conversion in Photoelectrochemical Solar Cells," Nature (1987); ibid (1987); (1990), ibid (1991), etc.
(1b) "Thermochemical Solar Hydrogen Generation" Chemical Comm. (2003, 2005); etc.
(2) "A Novel Solid Sulfur Cathode for Aqueous Batteries," Science (1993); ibid (1989); ibid "Energetic Iron(VI) Chemistry: The Super-Iron Battery," (1999); Chemical Comm. (2004, 2006, 2007, etc.).

Biography
Stuart Licht is a Program Director in the Chemistry Division of the National Science Foundation, and also professor and past chair of the chemistry department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Licht received the Electrochemical Society's Energy Research Technology Award in 2006. His interests include solar and hydrogen energy, energy storage, development of unusual materials, and fundamental interfacial material’s chemistry. Licht received his doctorate in 1986 from the Weizmann Institute of Science, followed by appointments as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Scientist at MIT. In 1988 he was the first Carlson Professor at Clark University, and in 1995 he was awarded a Gustella Professorship at the Technion Israel Institute of Science. He has contributed over 250 peer reviewed papers and patents, ranging from novel efficient solar semiconductor/ electrochemical processes to unusual batteries. He is past chair of the New England Section of the Electrochemical Society; past chair of a section of the American Chemical Society; and is past founder and chair of the Israel Section of the Electrochemical Society. Licht has established the field of Fe(VI) charge storage, as well furthering the understanding of charge collection and battery technology, and photoelectrochemical energy conversion processes including novel solar generation of hydrogen fuel, solution/interface limits on photoelectrochemical charge transfer, solar cells which both convert and store energy and multiple band gap solar energy conversion.