Artificial Leaf Produces Clean Hydrogen Fuel | Green Technology Development
Artificial Leaf Produces Clean Hydrogen Fuel: A New type of Solar Cell has been developed by Researchers at University of Illinois, Chicago. It’s a Photosynthetic Solar Cell which uses CO2 And Artificial Leaf Makes Fuel From Sunlight and using Sunlight only as energy, unlike conventional solar cells that convert sunlight into electricity to be stored in batteries.
This could be a potential game changer and could solve some crucial problems related to energy use. The energy dense fuel produced by the new solar cells could help address challenges linked to the burning of other kinds of hydrocarbons such as oil, gasoline, and coal. This Synthetic gas could be burned directly or converted into other Artificial Leaf Produces Hydrocarbon Fuels like diesel. Ability to efficiently turn CO2 into fuel at an economically viable cost would render fossil fuels obsolete.
Scientists have already found a way to convert Carbon monoxide, a planet-warming greenhouse gas, into usable fuel such as methanol. But Converting carbon dioxide into something usable has been more of a challenge, as its chemically more stable. “The chemical inertness of CO2 renders many electrochemical and photochemical conversion processes inefficient,” the researchers published their finding, in the July 29 issue of Science. A provisional patent application has been filed. This initiative was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Inventor Develops Synthetic “Leaf” That Produces Oxygen
Unlike plants, the new device makes sugars store energy, like trees and plants that capture and convert carbon dioxide using Nanoflake Tungsten diselenide catalyst to convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide.
Amin Salehi-Khojin, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UIC and senior author on the study said: “The new solar cell is not photovoltaic — it’s Artificial Leaf Photosynthesis, Instead of producing energy in an unsustainable one-way route from fossil fuels to greenhouse gas, we can now reverse the process and recycle atmospheric carbon into fuel using sunlight,”. The team had researched a family of nano-structured compounds called transition metal dichalcogenides — or TMDCs — as catalysts, pairing them with an unconventional ionic liquid as the electrolyte inside a two-compartment, three-electrode electrochemical cell. Nanoflake tungsten diselenide turned out to be the best.
Mohammad Asadi, UIC postdoctoral researcher & first author on the Science paper said: “The new catalyst is more active; more able to break carbon dioxide’s chemical bonds, the new catalyst is 1,000 times faster than noble-metal catalysts — and about 20 times cheaper.”
‘Artificial leaf’ Makes Fuel From Sunlight
In plants, the process of converting carbon dioxide into sugar involves the organic catalyst enzyme. Researcher & Co-Author Larry Curtiss from the Argonne National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy explained: “In photosynthesis, trees need energy from light, water, and carbon dioxide in order to make their fuel; in our experiment, the ingredients are the same, but the product is different,” This system is very similar to that found in nature. The Artificial Leaf Produces Clean Hydrogen Fuel by converting photons, or packets of light, into pairs of negatively charged electrons and positively charged holes that separate from each other. When the holes react with water molecules, protons and oxygen molecules are created. Along with carbon dioxide, the protons and electrons then react together to produce carbon monoxide and water.
A solar farm of artificial leaves could remove significant amounts of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a significant contributor to global warming.
