SOFI Research Applications

SOFI’s work supports the research and development necessary to take solar fuels from the lab to the marketplace.

We encourage collaboration and team science by connecting our members and creating partnerships and opportunities for exchange of knowledge and data.

Demo Project

Imagine…

Someday you’re flying to New York City, or London, or Tokyo. The jet you’re in is running on solar fuel. As you’re cruising at 35,000 feet, that jet is burning completely carbon neutral fuel.

This is the new energy future.

The liquid fuel derived from the process of artificial photosynthesis could be used in transportation, from race cars to jumbo jets, or to run a generator. Someday, solar fuel could power just about anything that currently runs on conventional oil or gasoline. The possibilities for this carbon neutral energy are limitless. But first, we need to support the research and development necessary to take solar fuels from a scientist’s dream, a laboratory experiment, to a commercial success ready to take over the energy marketplace.SOFI works hard to support solar fuels research in innovative ways, but it’s all for one goal: the commercialization of a system that uses sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to produce a liquid fuel.

SOFI's Demo Project brings us one step closer to this revolutionary form of energy.

We’re partnering with a group of companies who are all contributing a piece of a demo systems – from solar panels to carbon capture hardware to fuel cells.

Our engineers will figure out how design the systems to efficiently and effectively produce liquid fuel from sunlight using artificial photosynthesis, mimicking what plants have been doing for billions of years. 

SOFI's Dick Co describes how we can use artificial photosynthesis to create solar fuel that could power our homes.

Knowledge Map

Published research is a critical foundation on which developments in any scientific field depend. But what about all the results that go unpublished? What about lab notes, slide decks, proposals and meetings? What about the hours spent sifting through the published research for the paper with that one specific metric?

SOFI believes that all this information has value, that rejected research or scribbles in a notebook could prove useful tools for a scientist struggling with some aspect of solar fuels research. Your time also has value, and those hours spent reading irrelevant manuscripts could be better spent in the lab working toward your next breakthrough.

So we’re developing a Knowledge Map of solar fuels research – a searchable database of all the studies, notes, comments, and other information we can get our hands on. SOFI’s Knowledge Map will include salient metrics in a simple table format, so you can quickly find the information you’re looking for.

The Knowledge Map represents SOFI’s commitment to developing a new paradigm in solar fuels research.

Whether you are searching for the over-potential of a water oxidation catalyst or the solar-to-fuel yield of the most recent artificial photosynthetic system, the SOFI Knowledge Map will provide this information in an intuitive format.

Our process in creating this database is inspired by several highly successful efforts in other sectors: Netflix’s “re-engineering” of Hollywood, Missing Measurement’s efforts in predictive analysis of the impact of social programs, and Pandora’s music recommendation process. Leveraging the power of the internet will allow solar fuel researchers to work more effectively and with greater impact.

The field-specific data housed in the Knowledge Map will be obtained from dedicated experts in their field, including:

• catalytic processes such as hydrogen production, water splitting and carbon dioxide reduction
• light harvesting
• integrated device engineering.

As the field of solar fuels research expands, SOFI will be working to engage publishers to encourage a standardized method for reporting the many technical details associated with catalysts, light management, and device development. We believe that standardization can have a positive impact on research, integrity, and collaboration.

SOFI’s Knowledge Map database will be fully accessible to our community, who can use the sophisticated search tools being developed by experts on the SOFI team.