Daniel G. Nocera

Daniel G. Nocera (born July 3, 1957, Winchester, Massachusetts, U.S.) is an American inorganic chemist known for inventing the first practical “artificial leaf,” a silicon-based catalyst capable of separating hydrogen and oxygen from water in the presence of sunlight.

Nocera received a B.S. in chemistry from Rutgers University in 1979 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1984. While working at Caltech in the laboratory of inorganic chemist Harry Gray, he studied the transfer of electrons in inorganic systems and in biological systems such as proteins; these studies are now regarded as the first forays into the field of biological electron transfer. In 1984 Nocera began teaching chemistry at Michigan State University, and in 1997 he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He moved to Harvard University in 2012.

In 2007 Nocera and his colleagues at MIT announced the development of a process that liberated hydrogen and oxygen molecules in a container of water by using a cobalt-based catalyst attached to an electrode made of indium and tin. They proposed that the liberated hydrogen could be captured and either stored in fuel cells to produce electricity or mixed with carbon dioxide to make hydrocarbon fuels. In addition, Nocera and his colleagues claimed that the process would allow for the development of a large-scale generation of distributed energy that would not require the operation of large electric-power facilities, since the catalytic devices could be attached to private residences everywhere. In 2008 Nocera founded Sun Catalytix, a company charged with the delivery of distributed energy to parts of the world where electricity is expensive to produce by using fossil fuels and other traditional technology; Sun Catalytix was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2014.

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In 2011 Nocera announced the development of an artificial leaf (actually an electrode and a playing-card-sized wafer of silicon containing a catalyst made of nickel and cobalt) that was up to 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a plant leaf and was much cheaper than earlier devices, which used expensive catalysts such as platinum or ruthenium. Nocera claimed that his invention had the potential to revolutionize the way human beings accessed energy. He argued that people could power their homes, automobiles, and other devices with fuel cells and hydrocarbon fuels generated by captured hydrogen gas, which would be released by passing the equivalent of one gallon (a little less than four litres) of water per day over two roof-mounted door-sized catalysts in the presence of sunlight.

Nocera became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. Among numerous accolades, he received the United Nations Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization’s Science and Technology Award in 2009 for his contributions to renewable-energy development.