Robert Liu's latest research at the University of Hawai'i is the stuff dreams are made of: It's green to the extreme, it's cheap and it requires bodyboarding on the ocean.

For several months, he and two other photochemistry scientists from Washington and China, along with some bodyboarding volunteers, have been conducting solar chemistry research while riding the waves on a custom board.

"I do the research but haven't been able to do the boogie-boarding because I have a sciatic nerve problem and it slows me down," said Liu, 70. "But we have injected sun and fun into our longstanding photochemical research program and perhaps photochemical studies in general.

"I am hopeful that solar reaction with our very simple solar reactor can be built into college chemistry laboratories. It will not be costly and students will have firsthand experience doing something that normally requires expensive setups."

Liu's surf-and-sun research came about when his team customized a bodyboard to carry chemicals in test tubes that are heated by the sun and cooled by the ocean as riders catch waves.

"No electricity and no running water needed," Liu said. "Green photochemistry to da max!"

Through his makeshift reactor, light is absorbed by a colored material and the excess energy is passed on to the reactant. The reactor then uses the ocean as a heat sink to dissipate any excess heat without any liquids leaking out of the test tubes.

Any large body of water could do the same thing, he said, and the reactions can be done within a half-hour.

Liu called his findings "a giant step for us, but a veeeeery small step for mankind."

The science world has taken notice, too. His findings and methods have been written up in magazines for leading science organizations such as the Royal Chemical Society of London and the German Chemical Society.

One photochemist, from City University in Dublin, Ireland, consulted with Liu early in the project and has since asked Liu for his customized bodyboard for further study when he moves to Australia.

Liu is sending it to him.

"I bought the board for $10 and we bought $40 worth of material from City Mill to build a solar reactor for it," Liu said, chuckling. "I'm cheap."

The makeshift reactor is about the size of a magazine and led to the discovery of variants of vitamin A that can be used in perfumes, Liu said.

The bigger picture, however, is that the innovative research proves that large bodies of water can be used as a coolant without using electrical power.

"I am not an engineer, thus with less appreciation of problems in operating things at large-scale level," Liu said. "But there are a lot of possibilities for this with further research."

Liu downplayed his own findings of the vitamin A variant because similar variants are already in use. But he said he's happy that they were able to get solar chemistry to work for the first time by using the ocean as a coolant.

"All my work through the years has always had a photochemical component, to use light to produce new chemistry," said Liu, who also said he is retiring after 40 years at UH. "But then we relied on UV lamps, using electricity as the energy source. Solar chemistry happened to us only this year.

"There are a lot of chemicals needed at industrial levels that can be produced much cheaper, maybe half the price, through solar use," Liu said. "Once you can produce energy through the sun, you can do anything you want."