Boettcher Lab

Historical picture wall from our Oregon lab has a new home in our Berkeley lab. The team made some of the greatest PhD defense advertisement posters ever.

We're still looking for strong candidates for software and analytics roles at Firma Power. Take a look and share with friends and colleagues!

We celebrated my PhD advisor Galen Stucky's career with a new endowed lectureship at UCSB this week. Galen gave the first on his work in blood clotting materials - this led led to products in use today saving lives of our military. give.ucsb.edu/campaigns/6696…

progress in pure-water fed AEMWE from Dr. Shujin Hou Perspective science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… Paper: science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… Also, grants supporting the work cancelled... we will find a way to keep working towards H2 production that competes on unsubsidized cost with natural gas.

The 2025 physics laureate John Clarke was born in 1942 in Cambridge, UK. He received his PhD in 1968 from the @Cambridge_Uni, UK. He is currently a professor at the @UCBerkeley, USA. physics.berkeley.edu/people/faculty…

reminder to apply NOW if you want to attend electrochemistry GRC in Ventura January... already oversubscribed and sorting through early applications:: grc.org/electrochemist…

The two-year @activatefellows program provides early-stage science entrepreneurs with funding, technical resources, & a robust network to bring their research to the real world. Info session tomorrow, Sept. 9th: activate.org/events-clone-1…

@CoryMSimon @johnkitchin This could work, but you need a different system for funding early stage R&D. Investors only invest when they have ability to earn return on their investment, and that requires having exclusive patent rights. My student just spun out a BPM company and this is a big deal.

> try to run our economy without university innovation and federally funded science. It would be a disaster. 💯 agree. my claim instead is “publicly-funded research should be in the public domain for all to freely benefit from—without charging licensing fees and without enriching professors, lawyers, and uni admins”. how would this prevent you from innovating or change your research direction?

it does seem a little shady to me, that prof's and uni's obtain patents based on research funded with public $.

@CoryMSimon @johnkitchin There's a pretty big gap between what we publish papers on, even good applied science, and what is commercializable. And that's where a startup comes in and needs to get investment to bridge that R&D gap to have something of real value in a commercial sense.

@johnkitchin @CoryMSimon This is exactly right and try to run our economy without university innovation and federally funded science. It would be a disaster.

@CoryMSimon There was a time before this when the govt owned all the patents. The government is not setup to commercialize anything though, and innovation was stifled. The current system is much better.

It has been a fun event!

The GRC Electrochemistry Conference is one of my very favorites. We have not been able to accept any applications into the conference yet per GRC guidelines. We will start making acceptances ASAP in September so folks can firm travel plans. Apply soon! grc.org/electrochemist…

@johnkitchin yes

The Consensus Wars - #microfiction The climate scientist watched her life’s work get dismissed as “fake news” on live TV. That night, she called six colleagues. “What if we’re studying the wrong thing?” she asked. “What if we need to study why people reject science instead of just doing more science?”

Pilot lines for emering energy storage: sites.google.com/lbl.gov/pilotl…

We had a celebration for John Prausnitz yesterday at UC Berkeley and his remarkable contributions to Chemical Engineering. He and his wonderful family (also attending) are kindly endowing a seminar series in the department. Was able to meet some of the other legends too...

Last stop in Europe was the incredible EPFL, hosted by (group alumni!) Dr. Qiucheng Xu and Prof Xile Hu. Saw so many old friends, along with meeting electrochemistry legends Hubert Girault and Michael Grätzel. Lausanne is an remarkable - only wish I had time for a swim.

@ember_energy so one just needs to think about a different grid services model for backup, add back-up home energy costs, or perhaps regional grid back-up services with H2 production serving other sectors while providing backup for rare events.... it is all coming.

@ember_energy The renewable electricity revolution is coming! But this is a bit misleading. Without a diesel or gas generator backup, the system level reliability without grid backup will add additional cost (but in fact quite doable). Grid backup becomes increasingly expensive when used less.

5 kWh of fixed solar panels + 17 kWh battery can deliver 1 kW of solar electricity round-the-clock on an average day in Las Vegas 🕧 A 17 kWh battery is smaller compared to most EV batteries, and will be sufficient for most regions across the world🔋 ember-energy.org/latest-insight…

Happy to share my graduation from Harvard University, @TheAzizLab, and starting my postdoc at UC Berkeley, @BoettcherLab!

Leiden is beautiful and with a deep science history, where helium was first liquefied. Also was able to catch Dr Haokun Chen at his job at Brineworks building bipolar membrane elctrolyzers