Science<\/a>, Associate Professor Grace Han and her team detail a new material that captures sunlight, stores it within chemical bonds, and releases it as heat on demand.<\/p>\nThe material, a modified organic molecule called pyrimidone, is the latest advancement in Molecular Solar Thermal (MOST) energy storage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concept is reusable and recyclable,\u201d says Han Nguyen, a doctoral student in the Han Group and the paper\u2019s lead author.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink of photochromic sunglasses. When you\u2019re inside, they\u2019re just clear lenses. You walk out into the sun, and they darken on their own. Come back inside, and the lenses become clear again,\u201d Nguyen continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat kind of reversible change is what we\u2019re interested in. Only instead of changing color, we want to use the same idea to store energy, release it when we need it, and then reuse the material over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n
To create this molecule, the team looked to a surprising source: DNA. The pyrimidone structure is similar to a component found in DNA that, when exposed to UV light, can undergo reversible structural changes.<\/p>\n
By engineering a synthetic version of this structure, the team created a molecule that stores and releases energy reversibly. They collaborated with Ken Houk, a distinguished research professor at UCLA, to use computational modeling to understand why the molecule was able to store energy and remain stable for years without losing the stored energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe prioritized a lightweight, compact molecule design,\u201d Nguyen says. \u201cFor this project, we cut everything we didn\u2019t need. Anything that was unnecessary, we removed to make the molecule as compact as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Traditional solar panels convert light into electricity, however most systems convert light into chemical energy. The molecule acts like a mechanical spring: when hit with sunlight, it twists into a strained, high-energy shape. It stays locked in that shape until a trigger\u2014such as a small amount of heat or a catalyst\u2014snaps it back to its relaxed state, releasing the stored energy as heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe typically describe it as a rechargeable solar battery,\u201d Nguyen says. \u201cIt stores sunlight, and it can be recharged.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s new molecule is a heavy hitter. It boasts an energy density of more than 1.6 megajoules per kilogram. That is roughly double the energy density of a standard lithium-ion battery\u2014which comes in at around 0.9 MJ\/kg\u2014and significantly higher than previous generations of optical switches.<\/p>\n
The critical breakthrough for Han\u2019s group was translating high energy density into a tangible result. In the study, the researchers demonstrated that the heat released from the material was intense enough to boil water\u2014a feat previously difficult to achieve in this field.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoiling water is an energy-intensive process,\u201d Nguyen says. \u201cThe fact that we can boil water under ambient conditions is a big achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n
This capability opens the door for practical applications ranging from off-grid heating for camping to residential water heating. Because the material is soluble in water, it could potentially be pumped through roof-mounted solar collectors to charge during the day and stored in tanks to provide heat at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith solar panels, you need an additional battery system to store the energy,\u201d says coauthor Benjamin Baker, a doctoral student in the Han Lab.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith molecular solar thermal energy storage, the material itself is able to store that energy from sunlight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The research was supported by the Moore Inventor Fellowship, which Han received in 2025 to pursue the development of these \u201crechargeable sun batteries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: UC Santa Barbara<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Share this Article You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. A new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[58265,18,19,17,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-354810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-batteries","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116128941860626368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}