Funding Extended for Bio-inspired Solar Energy Research

The Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) at Washington University has won a four-year, $14.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue research on natural and bio-inspired systems for harvesting the sun’s energy.

Natural photosynthetic systems consist of two parts: antennas that collect solar photons and reaction centers that transform the light energy. Under the DOE grant, PARC researchers will continue their work on antennas, as well as explore energy delivery at the reaction center interface and reaction center design.

The DOE funding is aimed at making advances in solar energy, electrical energy storage, carbon capture and sequestration, materials and chemistry by design, biosciences and extreme environments.

For more information, visit www.wustl.edu.