NTC: Distinguished Lecture Series presents Professor Richard Zare

Register to attend online here!

Navy TechConnect: Distinguished Lecture Series presents Professor Richard Zare!

Monday, May 18, 2026

TechGrid: 221 W. Inyokern Rd. Ridgecrest, CA 93555

11:30am-12:30pm

Title: “The Wonders of Water Droplets in Air and Air Bubbles in Water"

Professor Richard Zare, Department of Chemistry, Stanford University

Bio – Richard N. Zare is the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science at Stanford University with an appointment in the Department of Chemistry and a courtesy appointment in the Department of Physics. He is a graduate of Harvard University, where he received his B.A. degree in chemistry and physics in 1961 and his Ph.D. in chemical physics in 1964. In 1965 he became an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but moved to JILA, University of Colorado at Boulder in 1966, remaining there until 1969 while holding joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry, and the Department of Physics and Astrophysics. In 1969 he was appointed to a full professorship in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University, becoming the Higgins Professor of Natural Science in 1975. In 1977 he moved to Stanford University. He served for six years as the chair of the Stanford Chemistry Department (2005-2011). Professor Zare is renowned for his research in lasers applied to chemical reactions and to chemical analysis. He is the recipient of many awards including the National Medal of Science in 1983, the Welch Award in Chemistry in 1999, the Wolf Prize in 2005, the Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences both in 2010, the King Faisal Prize (2011), the Othmer Gold Medal in 2017, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry in 2023. He has authored and co-authored over 1000 publications and nearly 100 patents.

More information than you are likely to want to know about him can be found on his website: www.zarelab.com

Abstract: Water is commonly regarded as a benign substance, an excellent solvent for polar molecules yet chemically inert and widely used to extinguish flames. This presentation will show that water becomes highly reactive at hydrophilic–hydrophobic interfaces involving insoluble solids, immiscible liquids, or gases. In particular, the reactivity of interfacial water increases dramatically with curvature. While flat interfaces exhibit little chemical activity, micro- and nanoscale curvature, such as water droplets dispersed in air or gas bubbles rising through water, generates conditions that enable unexpected chemical transformations.

These curved interfaces can produce striking phenomena, including dewdrops promoting plant flowering, spontaneous nitrogen fixation from air, and small electrical discharges, which I have termed “microlightning.” Such discharges may account for the formation of key prebiotic molecules from gases present on early Earth, as well as visible emissions and even explosive events observed in natural systems.

Although water is among the most abundant substances on Earth, its behavior at curved interfaces reveals a largely unexplored chemical reactivity. Understanding and harnessing this interfacial activity opens new opportunities for sustainable synthesis, atmospheric chemistry, and prebiotic chemical evolution.

The work reported has been majorly sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through a MURI program, and I wish to express my deep gratitude to this program.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher TechGrid