Energy · Sustainability · Solar Chemistry
Erwin Reisner
Professor of Energy and Sustainability and Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies
Developing solar-powered technologies for the sustainable conversion of waste, water and air into fuels and chemicals.
University of Cambridge · St John’s College
Biography
Erwin Reisner is the Professor of Energy and Sustainability and Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge.
Erwin is an expert in renewable energy technologies and sustainable chemistry, particularly the sunlight-powered production of sustainable fuels and platform chemicals. His cross-disciplinary research more broadly spans solar chemistry and circular chemical technologies, focusing on capturing and utilising carbon dioxide, as well as valorising plastics and biomass waste for a net-zero future. Together with his team, he integrates synthetic and biological catalysts with photovoltaic light absorbers to enable efficient and selective solar-driven chemical synthesis. This work has led to autonomous solar-powered prototype devices for direct solar-fuel production, new approaches to green organic synthesis, and the production of green fuels and chemicals from waste resources.
Career
2005
PhD degree in bioinorganic chemistry
University of Vienna, Austria
2005–07
Erwin Schroedinger Postdoctoral Fellow
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
2008–09
BBSRC Postdoctoral Research Associate
University of Oxford, UK
2010–15
University Lecturer
University of Cambridge, UK
2011
Fellow of Organic Chemistry
St. John’s College, Cambridge, UK
2015–17
University Reader
University of Cambridge, UK
2017
Professor of Energy and Sustainability
University of Cambridge, UK
2024
Royal Academy of Engineering Chair
in Emerging Technologies
University of Cambridge, UK
Selected awards
Selected PI funding
Most recent
2024–34
Solar-powered Upcycling of Biomass and Plastic Waste to Sustainable Chemicals
Royal Academy of Engineering and UK Department of Science, Innovation & Technology · Chair in Emerging Technologies
2023–28
Semi-biological Domino Catalysis for Solar Chemical Synthesis
ERC Advanced Grant, funded as a UKRI Frontier Research Grant · domino4chem