Two stories from the ISACS 12 conference : solar - fuel devices and catalyst identi fi cation

The International Symposia for advancing the Chemical Sciences, a partner of the journal Chemical Science, held its 12 meeting (ISACS 12) at the University of Cambridge on September 3–6 2013. ISACS 12 focused on “Challenges in Chemical Renewable Energy”, with oral presentations organized along ve themes: photovoltaics, solar fuels, molecular and bio-inspired catalysts, new materials for batteries, and fuel cells. ISACS 12 also included a presentation on the sugar cane-based energy industry in Brazil, a recording by the BBC World Service, and two poster sessions. This conference was an exciting, busy place to meet people, exchange ideas, and foster collaboration. ISACS 12 focused heavily on the development of economic, sustainable, and scalable ways to produce fuels from sunlight, H2O and CO2. Hence, terms such as “solar fuels”, “articial leaf”, “CO2 reduction”, and “water splitting” were frequently used by conferees. Because almost all of the talks in the “molecular catalysis” theme focused on catalysts for the solar-driven production of fuels (and CO2 reduction in particular), half of the talks at ISACS 12 were concerned with solar fuels.