Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – Pollution is a world-wide problem every country must deal with, but maybe our air can be cleaner in the near future.
Inspired by photosynthesis, the natural process by which plants use the energy from sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into food scientists have successfully developed an artificial leaf that uses only sunlight, carbon dioxide and water. The goal is to use this carbon-neutral device to develop a sustainable liquid fuel alternative to petrol.
The study conducted by a group scientists from the University of Cambridge is promising for the future.
Researchers have demonstrated this artificial leaf can directly produce the gas — called syngas in a sustainable and simple way.
Rather than running on fossil fuels, the artificial leaf is powered by sunlight, although it still works efficiently on cloudy and overcast days. And unlike the current industrial processes for producing syngas, the leaf does not release any additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Syngas is currently made from a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and is used to produce a range of commodities, such as fuels, pharmaceuticals, plastics and fertilizers.
“You may not have heard of syngas itself but every day, you consume products that were created using it. Being able to produce it sustainably would be a critical step in closing the global carbon cycle and establishing a sustainable chemical and fuel industry,” said senior author Professor Erwin Reisner from Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry, who has spent seven years working towards this goal.
On the artificial leaf, two light absorbers, similar to the molecules in plants that harvest sunlight, are combined with a catalyst made from the naturally abundant element cobalt.
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When the device is immersed in water, one light absorber uses the catalyst to produce oxygen. The other carries out the chemical reaction that reduces carbon dioxide and water into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, forming the syngas mixture.
As an added bonus, the researchers discovered that their light absorbers work even under the low levels of sunlight on a rainy or overcast day.
PhD student Virgil Andrei explained in a press statement: “This means you are not limited to using this technology just in warm countries, or only operating the process during the summer months. You could use it from dawn until dusk, anywhere in the world.”
Researchers point out that the development of synthetic petrol is vital, as electricity can currently only satisfy about 25% of our total global energy demand.
“We are aiming at sustainably creating products such as ethanol, which can readily be used as a fuel,” said Andrei. “It’s challenging to produce it in one step from sunlight using the carbon dioxide reduction reaction. But we are confident that we are going in the right direction, and that we have the right catalysts, so we believe we will be able to produce a device that can demonstrate this process in the near future.”
The results are reported in the journal Nature Materials.
Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer