Welch Award recipient leverages lifetime of
basic research in chemistry to advances in solar fuel

PASADENA, Calif., May 19, 2009 - With decades of breakthroughs in bioinorganic and inorganic photochemistry powering his current work in renewable fuels, Harry B. Gray of the California Institute of Technology today was named recipient of the 2009 Welch Award in Chemistry. The award is presented annually by the Houston-based Welch Foundation for lifetime achievement in basic research.

"Harry Gray is a gifted researcher, teacher and statesman for chemistry," said Dennis Hendrix, chairman of The Welch Foundation. "He has touched almost every aspect of inorganic chemistry in his 45-year career and helped co-found the fields of biological inorganic chemistry and inorganic photochemistry.

Dr. Gray, now 73, the Beckman Professor of Chemistry and founder of the Beckman Institute at Caltech, says he has been "training my whole life" for his current work in solar energy fuel storage. He also heads the Center for Chemical Innovation - Powering the Planet, collaborating with 17 other scientists in a National Science Foundation-funded program. Their goal is to develop the enabling chemistry needed for the efficient and economical conversion of solar energy into stored chemical fuels.

"All my work and training in the fundamentals of chemistry - building knowledge and learning techniques over the past 40-plus years - have prepared me for the research I'm doing now that will directly benefit mankind," Dr. Gray said. "Chemistry is a science that takes decades to master before you can begin making the big contributions and that's why The Welch Award, given for lifetime achievement, is particularly gratifying."

"At a time of life when many are thinking about retirement, Dr. Gray continues to lead the field into new science and new discoveries that will make a major impact," said James L. Kinsey, chairman of the Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board. "In addition to his passion for renewable fuels, he is studying aspects of protein folding that may have implications for Parkinson's disease. He continues to bring imagination and enthusiasm to the pursuit of new knowledge in chemistry."

Early in his career, Dr. Gray developed ligand field theory of inorganic electronic structures, insights still widely used today. He found that the bonding models he had developed for inorganic substances also were useful in understanding many biological processes, leading to the creation of the new field of biological inorganic chemistry.

He moved on to study electron transfer, respiration and photosynthesis. In the early 1980s, his group made a major discovery when they found that molecules do not have to be in close contact to transfer electrons as previously thought, but instead two metal atoms could complete the transfer over "long" distances of as much as two or three nanometers and across 20 atoms or more. This discovery is significant in that the longer distances provide the opportunity to capture and store the energy created by the electron moving from one molecule to the next, rather than simply generating heat that is wasted in the "short" distance transfers.

This breakthrough forms the basis for photosynthetic systems that can store sunlight's energy as a chemical fuel. The fuel then can be used to make electricity when needed. His current work is exploring how best to duplicate nature's photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn sunlight into food and concurrently produce the oxygen essential to life. Dr. Gray and his team are exploring the use of abundant inorganic (non-living) materials and sunlight to generate hydrogen fuel and clean water economically on a large scale.

Dr. Gray and other scientists have been working on aspects of this issue, which he considers one of the most critical in chemistry, for decades. "We are now leveraging vast amounts of earlier work - painstakingly developed over the years - to make real progress in renewable energy," Dr. Gray said. "Science, especially chemistry, is a building effort in which our enhanced understanding of basic processes continually opens new doors. I believe we will have a solution to two of the world's biggest challenges, clean energy and clean water, in this century."

Dr. Gray was raised in a small Kentucky town near the Tennessee border. He first studied inorganic chemistry at Northwestern University, where he received his doctorate. After postdoctoral work at the University of Copenhagen, he joined the chemistry faculty at Columbia University before moving to Caltech in 1966. Dr. Gray has published 17 books and more than 750 research papers. Among his numerous awards are the National Medal of Science in 1986, the Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society in 1991 and the Wolf Prize in 2004.

The Welch Foundation supports science through research and departmental grants, funding of academic chairs, an annual chemical conference and support for other chemistry-related programs. The annual Welch Award in Chemistry includes $300,000 and a gold medallion. The Foundation also annually bestows the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research to recognize the accomplishments of young chemical scientists in Texas who are within 10 years of their initial appointments as assistant professors or equivalents.

For a list of previous Welch Award recipients, please click here.