Daniel G. Nocera

Daniel G. Nocera is the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy at Harvard University. He is widely recognized as a leading researcher in renewable energy and is the inventor of the artificial leaf and bionic leaf. Nocera has accomplished the solar fuels process of photosynthesis – the splitting of water to hydrogen and oxygen using light from neutral water – at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. He has performed this solar process at efficiencies of greater than 10%. The artificial leaf was named by Time magazine as Innovation of the Year for 2011. He has since elaborated this invention to accomplish a complete artificial photosynthetic cycle. To do so, he created the bionic leaf, which is a bio-engineered bacterium that uses the hydrogen from that artificial leaf and carbon dioxide from air to make biomass and liquid fuels. The bionic leaf, which was named by the World Economic Forum as the Breakthrough Technology for 2017, performs artificial photosynthesis that is ten times more efficient than natural photosynthesis. Extending this approach, Nocera has achieved a renewable and distributed synthesis of ammonia (and fertilizer) at ambient conditions by coupling solar-based water splitting to a nitrogen fixing bioorganism, which is powered by the hydrogen produced from water splitting.

Nocera’s research contributions in renewable energy have been recognized by several awards, including the Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy, Eni Prize, IAPS Award, Burghausen Prize, and the United Nation’s Science and Technology Award. He has also been awarded the Inorganic Chemistry, Harrison Howe, Kosolapoff, and Remsen Awards from the American Chemical Society. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the Indian Academy of Sciences. He was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine, was 11th on the New Statesman’s list on the same topic, is a frequent guest on TV and radio, and is regularly featured in print.

In 2008, Nocera founded Sun Catalytix, a company committed to developing energy storage for the wide-spread implementation of renewable energy. In August 2014, Lockheed Martin purchased the assets of Sun Catalytix, and now Sun Catalytix technology is under commercialization under the venture Lockheed Martin GridStar™ Flow.