Stenbjörn Styring

Stenbjörn Styring är professor i Molekylär biomimetik vid Institutionen för Kemi – Ångström. Han var tidigare professor i Biokemi i Lund. Hans forskning om fotosyntesen rör mekanismen för det vattenoxiderande centret i Fotosystem II. Inom artificiell fotosyntes arbetar han med föreningar med kobolt, mangan och rutenium, ämnade för fotokatalytisk vattenoxidation. Stenbjörn Styring är ordförande för Konsortiet för Artificiell Fotosyntes: www.solarfuel.se

Stenbjörn Styring (b 1951) took his Ph D in biochemistry 1985 at the University of Göteborg, and then carried out post doctoral studies in Gif-sur-Yvette and at CEA Saclay, France, financed by a 5 year personal grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW). On return to Sweden he achieved a position as Forskarassistent at Stockholm University, financed by the KAW. In 1995 he was appointed the chair in Biochemistry at Lund University where he stayed until 2004 when he moved to Uppsala University.

Stenbjörn Styring works with natural and artificial photosynthesis and has about 250 publications. His research on photosynthesis has a strong biophysical profile dealing with mechanistic issues of the oxygen evolving enzyme in Photosystem II. His main techniques are EPR and fluorescence spectroscopy. In artificial photosynthesis he focuses on synthesis and EPR spectroscopic studies of manganese, cobalt and ruthenium-manganese compounds intended for photo-catalytic oxidation of water.

He has received the Svante Arrhenius medal from the Swedish Chemical Society and the Edlundska prize from the Royal Academy for Science. He was secretary (1988-91) and President (1997-2000) of the Swedish Biochemical Society. Recently he evaluated strategic renewable energy research for the Helmholtz Association; Germany (2009; research for ca 200 MEuro) and the Irish Strategic Research Cluster for Solar Energy Conversion (SFI funded, ca 4 MEuro). He is a member of the Scientific Advisory board for Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg, Germany and for the University Priority Program on Solar Light to Chemical Energy Conversion at University of Zurich. He is reviewer for numerous research councils and scientific journals.

Stenbjörn Styring initiated the Swedish Consortium for Artificial Photosynthesis and has been its chairman since the start (1994-present). The Consortium is a major Swedish research initiative with ca 50 researchers. For the Consortium he has since the start been PI for the many large joint grants. The Consortium has >300 joint publications, has supervised more than 40 Ph.D.’s and has involved >120 researchers over the years.

For the EU Styring coordinated the TMR Network (1996-2000) "Ru-Mn chemistry for artificial photosynthesis" with 10 European partners; SOLAR-H in the NEST ADVENTURE program (2005-2007) with 8 partners and recently SOLAR-H2 - the European Solar-Fuel Initiative in FP7 (12 partners in 8 countries, 2008-2012). He has lead networks for the Nordic Energy Research Program. 2009/10 he initiated, created and got funded the now active EUROCORE for Solar Fuels (ESF Eurocore program).