Solar Technology

Chemistry across continents: How Africa is shaping Berkeley's next generation of scientists

January 15, 2026
A record number of students and faculty in Berkeley’s College of Chemistry have ties to Africa, and the continent is inspiring their science and career paths.

CBE student Zirun Liang among recipients of 'Future Leaders in Chemical Engineering' award

October 21, 2025
Zirun was honored for his research with Professor Markita Landry, entitled 'Single-Molecule Modification of Carbon Nanotubes Through Stochastic Deposition of ssDNA'.

Scientists develop artificial leaf that uses sunlight to produce valuable chemicals

April 24, 2025
Decades of research leads to self-contained solar panels that convert carbon dioxide into C2 products.

Scientists grow lead-free solar material with a built-in switch

September 1, 2022

Light microscopy illustration shows nanowires, 100 to 1,000 nanometers in diameter

Light microscopy image of nanowires, 100 to 1,000 nanometers in diameter, grown from cesium germanium tribromide (CGB) on a mica substrate. The CGB nanowires are samples of a new lead-free halide perovskite solar material that is also ferroelectric. (Credit: Peidong Yang and Ye Zhang/Berkeley Lab)

Solar panels, also...

Solar beats nuclear at many potential settlement sites on Mars

May 10, 2022

Illustration of colony on Mars

An artist’s rendering of a crewed Martian biomanufactory powered by photovoltaics and capable of synthesizing food and pharmaceuticals, manufacturing biopolymers and recycling biological waste. (Artwork credit: Davian Ho, UC Berkeley)

The high efficiency, light weight and flexibility of the latest solar cell technology means photovoltaics could provide all the power needed for...

ChatGPT accelerates chemistry discovery for climate response, study shows

August 7, 2023
UC Berkeley experts taught ChatGPT how to quickly create datasets on difficult-to-aggregate research about certain materials that can be used to fight climate change, according to a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Hand-held water harvester powered by sunlight could combat water scarcity

July 6, 2023

Omar Yaghi

Omar Yaghi, the inventor of MOFs, led the study on MOF-powered water harvesters that was published July 6 in Nature Water. (Photo courtesy of Omar Yaghi)

UC Berkeley researchers have designed an extreme-weather proven, hand-held device that can extract and convert water molecules from the air into drinkable water using only ambient sunlight as its energy source, a...

The Secret to Renewable Solar Fuels Is an Off-and-On Again Relationship

July 21, 2020

analysis of copper ore

From alum Walter Drisdell's lab at LBL: new research published in the journal ACS Catalysis exams experiments performed vis X-ray spectroscopy on working solar fuel generator prototypes to demonstrate that catalysts made from copper oxide are superior to purely metallic-origin catalysts when it comes to producing ethylene, a two-carbon gas with a huge range of industrial applications – even after there are no detectable oxygen atoms left in the catalyst.

UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab will one day make windows work like solar panels

January 29, 2018

Peidong YangA breakthrough by Peidong Yang could one day help tall buildings use dramatically less energy, by using their windows to generate electricity. For the full story visit ABC7 News.