Towards Solar Fuels and Fertilisers | Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Annual Lecture 2026

Life runs on electrons and protons. Together, or as hydrogen-atom equivalents, they allow plants to store solar energy, underpin the fuels that power society, and help make the fertilisers needed to sustain life.

Simply put, hydrogen atoms decorate many of the key molecular building blocks of our world. Chemists would like to harness this same basic currency to make fuels, fertilisers, and other useful molecules using renewable electricity or light.

The challenge is control. Protons and electrons readily combine to make hydrogen gas, often more easily than they can be directed toward other molecules. Learning how to steer them selectively is therefore a central problem in modern catalysis.

Professor Peters' laboratory is developing new strategies to control this proton-and-electron currency using catalysts, electricity, and light. In this lecture, you will gain an understanding of the broader vision behind this work, emphasising one particularly demanding and consequential reaction: converting nitrogen from the air into ammonia.