Stuart Licht

Stuart Lawrence Licht is an American chemist and academic. He is a Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at George Washington University. Licht's research focuses on carbon capture to mitigate climate change and the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide into nanocarbons and other useful societ stables, as well as solar energy, battery chemistry, and fundamental physical and analytical chemistry.

His earlier works primarily focused on fundamental physical and analytical chemistry and high efficiency solar cells and photo-electrochemistry.^[1][2][3] This included solar cells that could store energy for night time use.^[1][2][3] His focus slowly transitioned to batteries and fuel cells, including making the first practical aqueous sulfur batteries (overcoming sulfur inherited insulating properties),^[4] super iron batteries (based on iron molecules in a plus six oxidative state, which previously was thought impossible to stabilize),^[5] the assembling of micro-electrodes,^[6] and vanadium diboride batteries and air batteries (redox of 11 or over 11 electrons per vanadium diboride molecule and has energy density over that of gasoline at times).^[7]

After 2009, his work primarily shifted to focus on generating useful molecules, such as graphene nanocarbons (such as CNT, graphene, and CNOs),^[8] ammonia,^[9] iron, solar fuels such as sungas, and hydrogen using high temperature electrolysis where heat and electricity can come from either renewable or non-renewable energy.^[10][11][12] High temperature electrolysis per equations outlined in his STEP solar energy conversion process reduces the energy needed for electrolysis with higher efficiencies than would be used in a heat engine, and using available heat, exogenic reactions, concentrated reactants, and high ionic activity electrolytes (molten salts) facilitates the predicted and observed highest levels of electrical to chemical energy conversion efficiencies.^[10][11][12]

Licht was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1976 and a Master of Science in 1980 from Wesleyan University, where he conducted research in molecular quantum mechanics. He completed his Ph.D. in 1985 at the Weizmann Institute of Science in materials chemistry, with a focus on photoelectrochemical solar cells.^[13] From 1986 to 1988, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied microelectrode diffusion under the guidance of Mark S. Wrighton.^[14][15]

From 1988 to 1995, Licht held the Carlson Endowed Chair in Chemistry at Clark University. He subsequently served at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology from 1995 to 2003,^[16] and then chaired the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2008.^[17] He also worked as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation.^[18] In 2008, he joined George Washington University, where he became Professor Emeritus of Chemistry in 2023.^[19]

He has chaired the New England Section of the American Chemical Society and is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society,^[20] where he founded both the New England and Israel sections.

Licht's research is centered on developing carbon-negative technologies. His work on liquid solar solar cells pursued (1) discovery of the role of solution chemistry in the mechanism and enhancement of photoelectrochemical (semiconductors immersed in electrolytes) solar energy conversion,^[1] (2) development of a solar cell with built energy charge storage,^[2], (3) multi-bandgap photoelectrochemistry,^[21] (4) a light addressable sensor^[22] and (5) highest solar conversion efficiencies for solar water splitting to produce hydrogen.^[23]

He is the developer of the Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo (STEP) process, which combines solar energy and high-temperature electrolysis to remove or convert carbon dioxide into solid carbon nanomaterials.^[24][25][26] The resulting nanocarbons have applications in composites, cement,^[27] and electronics.^[28] The STEP process is designed to both capture and utilize CO₂, contributing to climate mitigation efforts.^[29][30]

In addition to carbon conversion, Licht has conducted research in solar water splitting,^[31][32] and battery technologies, including iron(VI) redox systems^[33],  aluminum–sulfur batteries^[34][35][36], polysulfide batteries^[37], highest power domain aluminum/permanganate, ferricyanide or peroxide batteries,^[38] non-aqueous aluminum batteries,^[39] and molten-air batteries.^[40][41]

Licht introduced theoretical and experimental tools for the measurement of aqueous pH beyond the 0-15 pH range^[36], and other novel analytical methodologies to probe analytes in concentrated medium, including spectroscopy in the domain in which the path length is shorter than the wavelength of light in visible spectroscopy.^[42] He has also delineated extensive revisions of the fundamental physical chemical constants of water and selenides, and metal sulfides.^[43][44][45]

He has authored numerous scientific publications and holds patents related to physical chemistry and energy storage,^[32] and books including those on photoelectrochemistry,^[33] and solar hydrogen generation.^[34]

By 2024, Licht's STEP-based carbon conversion technology had progressed to industrial demonstration through Carbon Corp in Calgary, Canada. The technology received recognition from the Xprize Foundation for its potential to create valuable products from captured CO₂ and to reduce the carbon footprint of materials such as cement and polymers.^[35]

Licht is the grandson of industrial chemist Joseph Licht, published with his father analytical chemist Truman Licht, and published and patent extensively with his son Gad Licht. His over 900 patents and publications, have often focused on removal of the greenhouse gases.^[46][47] He also has an extensive presence in the journals Nature and Science.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]}

• 2005 Beckman Young Investigators Award^[48]
• 2006 Energy Technology Research Award, Electrochemical Society^[45]
• 2015 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award by EPA^[49]
• 2015 Open Innovation Energy Storage Prize, BASF^[50]
• 2015 Open Innovation Energy Storage Prize, BASF^[51]
• 2016 Hillebrand Prize^[52]
• 2018 Fellow of the Electrochemical Society^[31]
• 2019 Distinguished Researcher Award by the George Washington University^[53]
• 2022 XFactor XPrize Award for the most valuable product from CO₂, Carbon Corp Team Leader by Xprize Foundation.^[54]